With its armored shell, ancient anatomy, and 350-million-year lineage, the horseshoe crab almost seems too inconspicuous to stir up controversy. Yet this humble creature is at the very center of a collision between three completely different species.
For many decades, humans have harvested the horseshoe crab for use as fishing bait. Since the 1970s, we have also used horseshoe crab blood for medical purposes. But we may have gone too far. Horseshoe crab numbers have declined significantly since the early 1990’s. And, naturally, so did their egg numbers.
This is especially important to a small shorebird that is a global traveler of the most impressive kind. The red knot makes one of the longest migrations of any animal — a journey that takes it from one end of the earth to the other. To accomplish this feat, it relies on the eggs of the horseshoe crab. Without these eggs, the red knot is in danger.
In the film Crash: A Tale of Two Species, filmmaker Allison Argo tells the story of nature’s amazing ability to create fragile connections among the most unexpected creatures, and of our potential as humans to destroy those connections — or restore them.
To order a copy of Crash: A Tale of Two Species, visit the NATURE Shop.
Online content for Crash: A Tale of Two Species was originally posted February 2008.
i was amazed on the red knot because of what they can do.and there is no species like that in our country but it sad to say that they were facing a massive diclined on their population today.hope to give action for this…
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I need a coffee percolator knob for my 1957 Kitchencraft #2258E electric percolator.
I buy it at my local Stop & Shop. I live in Connecticut. I guess I’m lucky!
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OK.. I understand most of what you are saying but it is a lot to digest. I know it will sink in later on. Your writing is concise and to the point. By the way, Crash: A Tale of Two Species – Introduction – Horseshoe Crabs, Red Knot Shorebirds | Nature | PBS was a great choice for a title.
I was actually called by PBS to participate in this program. I have supported my family for over a decade harvesting horseshoe crabs and have a tremendous respect for them.
They are tremendously resilient, more so than any other creature I know. I have always felt that the blood industry/fishery is a sustainable fishery, the 10% loss is negligible compared to the 100% loss of the bait fishery.
The crab population is completely sustainable at the 10% loss rate, probably even at 20 or 25%.
Imagine how all you bleading heart folks would feel if they had to do things the way they did before lysate.
Animal testing! fuzzy furry critters injected, and killed, actual mammals, not overgrown insects, hundreds of thousands of them caged up until they met their demise.
Chalk another one up for the bleeding hearts, damn chicken and fish eating hypocrites!
What about turtles? I was at West Point Beach, today 5/28 and about 20 turtles were just hanging close off shore. Is this time for them to come out and lay eggs?