Court in Charleston Prohibits the Harvest of Horseshoe Crabs in South Carolina Beaches

Several critical habitat areas for threatened shorebirds will be protected as a result of a U.S. This season, a District Court in Charleston issued an order prohibiting three groups from harvesting horseshoe crabs on several South Carolina beaches.

Court Order Halts Horseshoe Crab Harvesting On Many South Carolina Beaches

(Photo : BASTIEN INZAURRALDE/AFP via Getty Images)

According to previous reporting by The State Media Co., red knots, a threatened migratory shorebird, rely on horseshoe crab eggs for survival, and each one fuels up on hundreds of thousands of the arthropod eggs in South Carolina on their way to the Canadian Arctic, as per Phys.org.

However, when horseshoe crabs are harvested from the beaches where red knots congregate for the benefit of pharmaceutical companies that use the crabs' blue blood to detect bacterial toxins, the red knots lose a food source.

According to The State Media Co., companies in Europe and Asia have switched to using a synthetic copy of the ingredient that does not require horseshoe crabs to be captured or bled.

On Thursday, United States District Judge Richard Mark Gergel issued an order halting horseshoe crab harvesting for three opposing groups on nearly 30 South Carolina beaches.

The order is valid for the entire spawning season, which runs from March 15 to June 15.

The beaches on this list have been identified by the United States. Red knot habitat is designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Department of Natural Resources.

"It is the most significant type of red knot and horseshoe crab protection ever put in place on the Eastern Seaboard," said Catherine Wannamaker, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.

The order also prohibits the placement of female horseshoe crabs in containment ponds, which house the captured arthropods before they are bled by pharmaceutical companies.

According to Samantha Jorgensen, a Charles River spokesperson, the company agreed to the resolution in the motion for a preliminary injunction on Saturday, allowing it to continue its work by protecting patients' health and safety, as well as the security of the global biopharmaceutical supply chain.

Previously, Jorgensen stated that Charles River had worked for nearly 40 years with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to oversee the annual collection and release of horseshoe crabs.

Jorgensen stated that the company is committed to collecting this natural resource in a safe and humane manner that is both environmentally sustainable and ensures that medical treatments are safe for patients.

The order issued on Thursday requires Charles River and its contractors to certify that the horseshoe crabs they do take are not from the restricted areas.

Harvesters must also use GPS while harvesting and keep a record of where they took the horseshoe crabs.

Beginning April 21, those records will be sent to SCDNR, Coastal Conservation League, and Defenders of Wildlife on a weekly basis.

The district court's order is environmentalists' second victory in less than a month in protecting red knots and horseshoe crabs. In the middle of March, the U.S.

The Fish and Wildlife Service issued a draft compatibility determination, which concluded that horseshoe crab harvesting was inconsistent with the intended purposes of Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.

Harvesting on the entire 66,000-acre refuge is currently halted under the draft.

Also Read: After Outliving the Dinosaurs, Crustaceans Used to Fight Covid Now at Risk of Extinction

Horseshoe crab in peril

The horseshoe crab is a marine chelicerate arthropod that lives in shallow coastal waters on soft sandy or muddy bottoms and spawns mostly on intertidal beaches during summer-spring high tides, as per IUCN.

There are four extant horseshoe crab species: the American horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) along the eastern coast of the USA and in the Gulf of Mexico, and three Indo-Pacific species, the tri-spine horseshoe crab (Tachypleus tridentatus), the coastal horseshoe crab (Tachypleus gigas) and the mangrove horseshoe crab (Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda) in coastal waters of India, Southeast Asia, China, and Japan.

The horseshoe crab is an important component of coastal biodiversity. They lay millions of eggs on beaches to feed shorebirds, fish, and other wildlife, which is one of their ecological functions.

Many other species, including sponges, mud crabs, mussels, and snails, use its large hard shell as a microhabitat. Unfortunately, in areas with low population density, this ecological link can be broken.

Because of overharvesting for food, bait, and biomedical testing, as well as habitat loss, the American horseshoe crab is listed as Vulnerable to extinction, and the tri-spine horseshoe crab is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species; the two additional Asian horseshoe crab species will be listed soon.

Participants from 14 countries and regions endorsed the Beibu Gulf Declaration on Global Horseshoe Crab Conservation in June 2019, during the IUCN SSC Horseshoe Crab Specialist Group international workshop in Guangxi, China, to call for stronger policy making and better enforcement, more scientific investigations, and research, sustainable management of horseshoe crabs, restoring natural populations and protecting critical habitats, and promoting public awareness as well as multi-party involvement in horseshoe crab conservation.

In order to broaden their public outreach activities around the world, the IUCN SSC Horseshoe Crab Specialist Group has designated June 20th as International Horseshoe Crab Day to highlight the four horseshoe crab species' collective conservation efforts.

Related article: Horseshoe Crab Blood Harvesting Practices Questioned by Researchers