Did you know that fishers in Massachusetts are allowed to kill and chop up 140,000 horseshoe crabs each year for use as bait for whelk? The unnecessary, reckless practice—it’s done so people could eat conch fritters—severely hinders the species’ ability to recover.

The good news is Massachusetts state Rep. Michelle Badger introduced H. 898, which would ban the killing of horseshoe crabs for bait. It got voted out of the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and is awaiting a vote in the House. If it passes it will go to the Senate. Massachusetts residents can help get this monumental bill passed into law by contacting their Massachusetts representatives and senators and urge them to ban the capture of horseshoe crabs for bait. You can find their contact info here: https://malegislature.gov/Search/FindMyLegislator

In 2024, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries issued 185 Horseshoe Crab Bait permits. The agency’s data reveals that 40 fishers participated in 2024, earning a total $280,000, which means they’re pushing horseshoe crabs to extinction to earn $7,000.

Rest assured, your voice on this issue matters. Friends of Animals, working with our champion Connecticut state Rep. Joe Gresko and CT residents, helped get a ban of the killing of these ancient mariners for bait passed in 2023. In December, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill that FoA got introduced and advocated for that prohibits the hand capture and killing of horseshoe crabs from the waters and shoreline of the state. Under the new law, the killing of horseshoe crabs for commercial or biomedical purposes will be phased out over a three-year transition period (the quota will go down 25% each year), with the full prohibition taking effect beginning in 2029.

And New Jersey’s ban went into effect in 2008.

Dwindling numbers of horseshoe crabs along Connecticut and New York shorelines have led to their functional extinction in Long Island Sound. That means they have become too rare to fulfill their crucial, interconnected role in the ecosystem. This tragedy is unfolding in Massachusetts as well.

The low numbers of horseshoe crabs are leading to a steep decline and possible extinction of other species—such as the threatened red knot— a shorebird who depends on horseshoe crab eggs for food to fuel its epic biannual flights between the southern tip of South America and the Arctic.

In 2021, fewer than 7,000 red knots were found in the Delaware Bay, a key spring stopover habitat. That’s less than a third found in 2020.  And red knot numbers remained at historically low levels in 2022. 

Without sufficient horseshoe crab eggs to feed on, migratory birds run out of energy and die before reaching their breeding grounds. Horseshoe crabs are also an important source of food for other wildlife such as sea turtles, and species such as anemones, barnacles, oysters, and seaweed use horseshoe crab shells as homes.

Horseshoe crabs have figured out how to harmonize with the environment to last half a billion years. They deserve our respect and protection.