The overharvest of horseshoe crabs on Delaware Bay is a not a story in itself, but one of many stories of overharvest on the Bay. So the question isn’t, “why are horseshoe crabs overharvested?” but “why are most commercially-important species in Delaware Bay, including horseshoe crabs, overharvested?”. The answer if as complex as the ecology of the Bay.
Likewise, fisheries management on the Atlantic Coast is closer to market hunting than most people would like to admit. The system is dominated by well-financed commercial interests (e.g., docks, boat/business owners, processing plants) who take much of the profit from fish harvests leaving the actual fishermen with low wages and high risk. In 2009 Fishermen in NJ earned an average pay of about $10.00/hour or about $22,000/year. As far as one can tell, this has not changed much in the last 10 years and it is not necessarily accurate as some income may not be reported. Nevertheless, the income of the port of Cape May/Wildwood has gone up dramatically. Over the last 10 years the port’s income (one of the richest in the country) has gone up by nearly 300% while landings have stayed relatively constant.
The take and amount earned at the Cape May/ Wildwood docks.
So one important insight into recurrent overfishing on Delaware Bay lies in the economics of commercial fishing. Most of the income generated by harvesting fish goes to the industrial fishing concerns who have no known interest in sustainability, only the bottom line. Similarly, the agency that regulates the industry, the Atlantic States Marine Fish Commission (ASMFC), is dominated by representatives of the commercial industry, so there is little interest in conservation only for maximizing take.
So how can one pursue a new path toward sustainability on Delaware Bay? I suggest two. First, fishermen need to look more closely at their alliances. Although I am not an expert, even a novice can see the fishermen of the Delaware Bay need better representation. Fishermen are vocal, and the fishing industry and politicians will put fishermen up front when it suits their needs. The truth is, however, fishermen are not heard, and their interests are not being represented by industry or government agencies. Fishermen are, for the most part, self-employed businessmen essentially subcontracted to do the work they do. Fishermen need to develop a better organization that would command better prices for their product. This is important for the conservation of the bay because commercial fishing is part of the historic culture of the bay. It generates wealth for local people and it makes the bay more attractive to visitors.
A second new path can be seen with a new approach to managing the harvest of the horseshoe crab. Given the money involved, it not surprising the evolving politics of the crab harvest end with significant benefits for the industry and not the fishermen. At the start of the overharvest in 1996 most of the crabs were been taken by individual fishermen by hand harvest. Now, most are taken at sea by trawl, so any profit more likely ends up with industry and, to add insult to injury, most fishermen that need horseshoe crab to use as bait now have to buy their crabs from the industry. NJ Fishermen can’t harvest crabs at all because of our moratorium. Topping it all, the ASMFC thwarted NJ’s moratorium by increasing harvests in MD and VA.
Making matters worse, the poorly organized system of extracting blood from the crabs for lysate production by the drug companies allows everyone to make money except the crabbers. Look at the stats. The companies pay about $2/crab and bleed about half a million crabs for a total price of $1,000,000. Although it is not well known what the lysate industry makes, some sources peg it at anywhere from $100,000,000 to $200,000,000 a year.
A new path toward sustainability would rely on altering the harvest system to ensure higher income for crabbers.
First Allow only the hand harvest of crabs. This preserves the profit of harvesting for crabbers and prevents MD and VA companies from trawling crabs off their shores, where Delaware Bay crabs are known to winter, and pretend the crabs are from some other unknown breeding area. This way the impact to all breeding areas would be known.
Second restrict all harvests to males only. This eliminates the impact of taking crabs during breeding because the females can still lay eggs. It is also the prime recommendation of the Adaptive Resource Management Model that is being considered for use by the ASMFC. It only allows male harvest when the sex ratio exceeds 3 males to every female
Third take blood from bait crabs only and require drug companies to buy blood from the crabber harvesting it. This will improve things in a number of ways. First, only males will be bled so any mortality associated with bleeding will not affect females breeders. Second, it would reduce overall mortality of crabs because bled crabs would go to bait harvest rather than two separate streams of harvest. Third, it increases the income for crabbers because as harvesters they own and can sell the blood.
This last outcome may be the most important. Increasing wealth generated by crabs for the people harvesting the crab would help create a better sense of ownership. If coupled with innovations such as fish quota shares, fishermen would see the sense of protecting their stock from overharvest.
Next Post
