in June on the lack of oversight in the horseshoe crab blood harvest on the east coast, including in areas where the crabs' eggs are considered an important food source for rare birds.
The blue blood of the horseshoe crab clots when it comes into contact with bacterial toxins, which helps technicians identify contaminated products. A synthetic alternative to the blood-derived testing ingredient, called limulus amoebocyte lysate, or LAL, was invented decades ago.
The lawsuit alleged that one of the ways the state allowed crabs to be harvested – permitting unlimited amounts of horseshoe crabs to be stored in ponds away from beaches – was harming the crabs and endangering a migratory shore bird called the red knot. Red knots depend on access to horseshoe crab eggs to fuel their annual migration from the bottom tip of South America to the Canadian Arctic. But the birds can't find the nutrition-rich eggs on beaches if the crabs that typically lay them there are sequestered during their mating season. Red knot numbers have declined by 94% over the past 40 years, and the species was designated as threatened by the federal government.
Charles River and the Department of Natural Resources denied they were responsible for harm caused to wildlife. But the terms of the settlement require the company to comply with stricter rules than the bleeding industry has typically been held to in South Carolina. For the next five years, the horseshoe crab harvest will be banned across 30 island beaches and harvesters will be prohibited from keeping female crabs in ponds away from the shore.