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Crabs are collected by fishermen to use as bait.
© Mick Dawson |
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Horseshoe crabs have again become a valuable commodity, this time as bait. Traditionally fishermen picked crabs off the beaches by hand, for free, and the harvest was small. However, the domestic and international market for eels and whelks (also called conch) has been growing rapidly. Female, egg-bearing horseshoe crabs make particularly good bait, so the demand for Limulus has greatly increased as well. With blue crabs scarce and other fisheries in a slump, horseshoe crabs have been selling for between eighty-five cents and a dollar a piece, a price that has made it even more attractive as bait to commercial fishermen and others. Some fishermen converted their boats to trawlers, which drag nets across the ocean floor and can catch tens of thousands of horseshoe crabs in one day.
A solution might lie in a synthetic horseshoe crab "scent" that would replace the need to use actual animals as bait, which scientists are working on.
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