Saving the horsehoe crabs from decline

The Aug. 3 Health & Science article “Is medicine a threat to horseshoe crabs?” focused on the threat to these ancient mariners from their capture, bleeding and release for use of their processed blood cells to assure the purity of injectable drugs and implants. A greater source of mortality affecting horseshoe crab populations are the 832,755 crabs landed and killed for bait coastwide in 2019 alone. The crabs are mostly cut up and used in conch pots and for catching catfish and eels. The mortality count was up 25 percent from 665,278 in 2018.