The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission recently took the first step in making changes to the way annual horseshoe crab harvest limits are determined.
Meanwhile, conservation groups continue to say the revisions will mean trouble for red knots, a threatened migratory shorebird.
At a meeting last week, the commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Board gave preliminary approval to revise the Adaptive Resource Management framework, which determines how the bay’s horseshoe crab population is measured.
Justifications for the revisions include newly available data, software updates and the support of an independent peer review panel.
“The (U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’) analysis, and an independent peer review by experts, affirms that the revised framework reflects the best available science, factors in additional sources of human-caused horseshoe crab mortality, and includes sound mechanisms for adapting to new information that make it possible to update the (population) models regularly with annual monitoring data and new research,” agency spokesman David Eisenhauer said prior to the meeting.
Horseshoe crab egg-eating red knots (subspecies rufa) are listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. Their survival depends on the abundance of horseshoe crab eggs in the Delaware Bay, the last pitstop on their yearly, 9,300-mile spring journey to the Arctic.
Conservation groups contend the revisions “will generate significantly higher horseshoe crab population estimates” and allow for the harvest of females, something that hasn’t been done in a decade.
BACKGROUND:Horseshoe crab harvest changes could affect threatened red knots, conservation groups warn
“We are dismayed by the board’s vote. With the red knot on the very edge of extinction, it shows just how out of touch the ASMFC has become. Now is the time to double down, not diminish, horseshoe crab protections,” said Defenders of Wildlife’s Christian Hunt.
Eisenhauer said the risk of violating the Endangered Species Act, as alleged by Earthjustice, is “negligible.”
“We will regularly update our take analysis as necessary should the revised framework be adopted by the ASMFC Horseshoe Crab Management Board,” he said.
The commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Board’s approval of the revisions means a draft addendum will be developed and reviewed at a later meeting. If approved, the addendum will be released for public comment before final action is taken.
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“The Board recognizes that there is considerable public concern about the potential impact of the ARM Revision on the status of the endangered red knot and is committed to fully vetting its possible use in setting harvest levels for horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay-origin through our public comment process,” Board Chair Joe Cimino said in a statement.
Delaware state Sen. Stephanie Hansen (D-Middletown), a former environmental scientist and now-chair of the senate environment and energy committee, expressed opposition to the revisions in an email to the commission. She asked them to delay the revisions until more data becomes available.
Nonprofits Earthjustice, Defenders of Wildlife, New Jersey Audubon, Delaware Audubon and the Delaware Center for the Inland Bays have also spoken out against the revisions.
