Coalition Seeks Delaware Horseshoe Crab Harvest Moratorium

DOVER, DEL. — A coalition of local groups including Delaware Riverkeeper Network, the American Littoral Society, the N.J. Audubon Society, and Defenders for Wildlife are, according to a release, “calling for reinstatement of a full moratorium on horseshoe crab harvest in the state of Delaware at a public hearing scheduled for Sept. 24 at 7 p.m. at Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control’s Richardson and Robbins Auditorium, 89 Kings Highway here.
The meeting is public testimony will be taken.
Historically, more than 100,000 Red Knots stopped along the Delaware Bay, but by 2004, this number had dropped to just 13,315 birds. According to a recent U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report, the Red Knot could be extinct “within the next decade.”
Access the full report by visiting: www.fws.gov/northeast/endangered/ and clicking on the red knot assessment link.
The Delaware Bay is home to the largest population of horseshoe crabs in the world. As a result, each year the Delaware Bay is also host to the second largest population of migrating shorebirds in North America who stop over along bay beaches to refuel on what used to be an overabundance of horseshoe crab eggs.
Because of over-harvesting of horseshoe crabs for eel and conch bait, there are no longer enough eggs to sustain the birds, their migration and their continued reproduction.
The red knot travels from Tierra del Fuego to the Delaware Bay. During their stop-over, they need to double their body weight by eating horseshoe crab eggs along the bay beaches before flying to their nesting grounds in the Arctic.
New Jersey protects shorebirds and horseshoe crabs, and currently has a full moratorium on horseshoe crab harvests.
“We need Delaware to do the same,” according to the release from The Delaware Riverkeeper and the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, which “advocates for the protection and restoration of the ecological, recreational, commercial and aesthetic qualities of the Delaware River, its tributaries, habitats and watersheds, including the Delaware Bay and shores.”