Pinched: Horseshoe crabs swim in middle of ecological debate
Lenny grabbed the creatures by their whip-thin tails and, two, three, four at a time, hurled them into the box. The two had picked the crabs up off a nearby beach, walking along the shoreline and tossing clusters of the slow-moving creatures into the boat.
The brothers, sons of a mechanic who were drawn to the water, will get 80 cents to $1.50 for each crab from fishermen who slice and quarter them to use as bait to catch conch and eel.
"As you can see, there's plenty of horseshoe crabs," Charlie Auman said, backing up with the now-stuffed box and loading it onto a rental truck.
"They're laying over there like cordwood," his brother shouted in agreement.
But now, this age-old tradition of "hand harvesting" horseshoe crabs may be near an end. Despite what the Aumans and other watermen say, scientists report that years of overfishing — what critics call a gold-rush mentality — have seriously depleted the number of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay, the largest spawning ground in the Atlantic, if not the world.
And with fewer crabs making it to shore and laying fewer eggs, the number of shorebirds that migrate thousands of miles to feast on the slick, tiny green eggs has dropped sharply. Already, the red knot is listed as a threatened bird in New Jersey, and discussions are continuing about whether to add it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's list of species in danger of becoming extinct.
After years of paying little attention to the unglamorous horseshoe crab and allowing unfettered hand harvests at the height of the spawning season — as well as dredging the bay floor and trawling in the open ocean — worried government regulators are imposing tough restrictions on watermen.
New restrictions studied
The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is considering recommendations from a panel of scientific experts to further cut harvests by as much as 75 percent from the peak harvest of the 1990s, when more than 3 million horseshoe crabs were taken in a year. The cuts may apply from Virginia to New York to reverse the decline in birds, particularly the red knot and semipalmated sandpiper.
The panel also recommends restricting hand harvesting from May 1 to June 7 when horseshoe crabs, in an ancient ritual, swim ashore at high tide to lay as many as 80,000 eggs each.
"You can't fish for salmon when they're spawning ... ," said Brad Andres, who has spent two years working on the report and recommendations for the fisheries commission. "It's happened in the past. Put out a net and wipe out entire species over the course of a season."
The debate has become emotional and angry, pitting national environmental organizations such as the Audubon Society and the American Bird Conservancy against the watermen.
"The only strategy we've had concerning horseshoe crabs until 2000 was, 'Take as much as you can.' It wasn't based on science; it was based on how much money watermen could make," said Audubon's Perry Plumart. "That's dangerous for the fishery and a death sentence for the birds."
Countered Charlie Auman, 41: "The Audubon Society is determined to shut the local fishermen down with their radical approach. The cuts they're proposing — there's no business that can survive that."
"We'll be picking up cans," added Lenny Auman, 48, as he continued to toss crabs, legs waving in the air, into another giant box.
With the science sketchy at best, each side uses surveys to bolster its argument. Still, scientists say, most studies show a downward trend in the horseshoe crab and shorebird populations. The disagreement comes in just how far down.
The way it was
Charlie Auman has been harvesting horseshoe crab since the old days, before the conch- and eel-bait bonanza. That was when the tanklike sea creature was chopped up and used for fertilizer and pig food, when you could harvest night or day, any day of the week.
Now, under fisheries-commission restrictions that took effect in 2000, he and the three dozen other licensed watermen in Delaware are limited to harvesting in daylight on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Regulations permit hand harvesting on state beaches, such as Port Mahon, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Unlike in the past, Auman now is limited to 1,500 crabs — he calls them "baits" — each day. Delaware allows only five boats to dredge the bay for horseshoe crabs. New Jersey and Maryland allow none.
"The horseshoe crab and shorebird declines are truly alarming," said Bradley Campbell, commissioner of New Jersey's Department of Environmental Protection. "Our concern is, if we don't take action, we will be facing the collapse of two populations."
And, to cut down on the amount of horseshoe crab used as bait, eel and conch fishermen are using bait bags that keep the decaying crab intact longer.
Birds still suffering
The fishing restrictions of the late 1990s have stanched the 10-year decline of the horseshoe crab, scientists say. But they haven't made a difference for the birds.
"The horseshoe-crab population seems to have leveled off," said Dave Carter, environmental-program manager with the Delaware Coastal Program. "But the problem is, the level where it's stabilized appears to be below the level that these birds need."
What the birds need, Carter said, is a "superabundance of food" — particularly the red knot. That bird flies 2,000 miles at a time, up to 70 hours nonstop, from its winter grounds on the southernmost point of South America to the tip of Brazil and then directly to Delaware Bay.
The effort leaves them scrawny and spent. They have about two weeks, Carter said, to gain back half their body weight and become plump enough to withstand the nearly 2,000-mile journey to their summer nesting grounds in the Canadian Arctic.