|
|
Horseshoe crab fishing moratorium weighed
Marilyn Miller
Banner Staff
WELLFLEET — There's a problem with horseshoe crabs in Wellfleet, and no one really knows what is going on.
These crabs, which are not really crabs at all but more akin to scorpions, ticks and land spiders, have evolved little over the past 250 million years
They are survivors. Their hard, rounded shells make it difficult for predators to turn them over and expose their soft, vulnerable underbellies. And they can go a year without eating.
It is clear there are not as many horseshoe crabs in Wellfleet as in the past, and some possible reasons for this were explored this past April when Mass. Audubon held a forum on horseshoe crabs at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.
That forum prompted the Wellfleet Shellfish Advisory Board to send a letter on May 3 to Alison Leschen of the state Division of Marine Fisheries, one of the speakers at the forum.
This Monday, members of the Wellfleet Natural Resources Advisory Board reviewed that letter, and then voted unanimously to send a similar letter to the Division of Marine Fisheries, expressing their concern for the future of horseshoe crabs in town.
John Reihl, chair of the natural resources advisory board, said the shellfish advisory board’s letter “is a message to DMF that there is broad concern about horseshoe crabs in Wellfleet and it is really asking them to do something about it. I’d proposed we find a way to support this initiative by writing a letter of our own to Alison Leschen.” He garnered the full support of the other board members.
They also discussed the possibility of asking the DMF to impose a three-year moratorium on the taking of horseshoe crabs in Wellfleet.
“A moratorium would be helpful to give the town time to find out what the existing population of horseshoe crabs is,” said John Doane, who sits on both the natural resources and shellfish advisory boards.
Last year, shellfishers were concerned when an out-of-towner took sacks of horseshoe crabs off, presumably to be used for biomedical reasons.
In the 1900s, horseshoe crabs were dried for use as fertilizer and poultry food supplements before the advent of artificial fertilizers.
The medical profession uses an extract, called lysate, from the horseshoe crab's blue, copper-based blood to test the purity of medicines. Its shell has also been used to speed blood clotting and to make absorbable sutures. The crab, after the blood removal, can usually be returned to its environment without a problem.
Aside from the medical use, horseshoe crabs are valuable as bait for conch and eel fishermen.
“We should just try a moratorium for Wellfleet now,” said Doane, adding, “I don’t think they are a big supply here for conch and eel fishers.”
John DiBlasio of the conservation commission, who sat in on the meeting, said he likes to take the shells of baby horseshoe crabs to paint. “But I’ve hardly seen any little guys this year, which tells me something is happening here.”
Reihl said the science of “horseshoe crabs is tricky,” and that once they are born, “they disappear for a while. They go off and people are not sure where they go off to.”
So what appears to be a decline in the horseshoe crab population may be something else, he said.
Doane, who wrote the letter that the shellfish advisory board sent to DMF, with copies to state Rep. Sarah Peake, said that horseshoe crabs help maintain a healthy shellfish environment in Wellfleet's waters by eating worms that adversely affect shellfish and pushing healthy oysters out of the mud in the spring that otherwise might die.
If, Doane said, “recent anecdotal evidence pointing to a steady decline in the crab population proves true, and the stocks crash,” the concern is that “severe measures may be required to protect the crabs,” which could include “the elimination or restriction of traditional fishing methods which in turn might put local fishermen out of business.”
mmiller@cnc.com
|
Vandal targets restaurant
New website keeps you connected
Outer Cape Worship Services
School Lunch Menus
|
|
|
|
|
May 15th, 2008