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Ninety percent of the horseshoe crab stock is located between Virginia and New Jersey, and only five years ago prime beaches would have been literally piled meters deep with spawning horseshoe crabs. Spawning surveys are not always reliable, but the effect of habitat degradation is becoming more and more obvious. Four separate scientific studies conducted in Delaware Bay since 1990 have estimated that the horseshoe crab population has declined by more than 50 percent. By any count it is apparent that the Delaware Bay population of Limulus polyphemus is swiftly declining.
Fewer Horseshoe Crabs Means Less For Other Species
Like all species, the horseshoe crab is part of a web of life, the disruption of which affects many other kinds of animals:
• Migratory shorebirds rely on abundant crab eggs to fuel their northward journey. These include red knots, sanderlings, ruddy turnstones, and sandpipers. Good stopover sites for these migrating birds are few, and no substitute exists for Delaware Bay.
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