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 has introduced H. 898, which would ban the killing of horseshoe crabs for bait. You can help get this monumental bill across the finish line by contacting members of the Joint Committee on Environment and Natural Resources and telling them to advance H.898 out of Committee without delay. You can find their contact info here https://malegislature.gov/Committees/Joint/J21

In 2024, Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries issued 185 Horseshoe Crab Bait permits. The agency’s data reveals that 40 fishers participated in 2024, killing 140,170 horseshoe crabs and earning a total of $280,000, which means they’re pushing horseshoe crabs to extinction for a measly $7,000 each!

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 signed into law in 2023. 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. Humans can really learn a thing or two from them.