The NY State legislature has once again passed a bill that would ban the killing of horseshoe crabs, including for commercial and biomedical purposes, and it now heads to the Gov. Kathy Hochul’s office.

As you may recall, we succeeded last year in getting a bill to Gov. Hochul, but she vetoed it. We need our supporters’ help to get her to sign the bill and protect these ancient mariners from extinction. An update of the 2019 Horseshoe Crab Stock Assessment was completed in 2024, and New York’s population is still rated as “poor.”

You can email Hochul and tell her to sign the bill here: Governor Contact Form | Governor Kathy Hochul. Or call her office at (518) 474-8390.

Fishers use horseshoe crabs in massive numbers as bait for eel and whelk so people can have their conch fritters and smoked eel, leading to their decline in status in recent reviews by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. There were 431 commercial horseshoe crab permits issued in 2023 by the state of New York, leading to the slaughter of a senseless 150,000 crabs from New York waters.

According to marine biologists, the horseshoe crab is functionally extinct in Long Island Sound. That means horseshoe crabs no longer play an effective role in their ecosystem and that negatively affects many other species, such as the threatened red knot shorebird.

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.

We know you anticipate and love seeing horseshoe crabs along the shoreline each summer as much as we do. Please press Gov. Hochul to ban the senseless killing of horseshoe crabs, just like Connecticut lawmakers did in 2023 with advocacy from Friends of Animals. New Jersey banned the killing of horseshoe crabs for bait in 2008.