Center Seeks to Join Appeal to Support Ban on Horseshoe Crab Harvest

On behalf of the Delaware Audubon Society, Delaware Nature Society, New Jersey Audubon, American Bird Conservancy, American Littoral Society, and Defenders of Wildlife, the Center has sought to intervene in an action in Delaware Superior Court which challenges Delaware’s two year moratorium on harvesting horseshoe crabs.  Horseshoe crabs are an essential food source for migrating red knot birds, which travel from the southern tip of South America to breeding grounds in the Arctic.  Commercial overfishing of the crabs in the 1990’s has been linked to a precipitous drop in the red knot population, and the bird may be extinct by 2010.  In response to this crisis in the red knot population, both New Jersey and Delaware have banned harvest of crabs for two years in the hope that increased crab populations will help increase production of the crab eggs that red knots need to complete their northward migration with sufficient weight to be able to breed successfully in the Arctic.  Commercial fishermen have challenged the moratorium, and the Center’s clients seek to intervene and help DNREC defend what may be the red knot’s last, best hope.