The age-old species known as horseshoe crabs is declaring a win over the drug companies.
Two major pharmaceutical giants – Amgen Inc. and Abbott Laboratories – have announced they will no longer take blood from the crabs for research.
Instead, they will shift toward using synthetic blood.
It’s a big win not only for crabs but for shore birds along the Maine coast whose diet includes the chelicerates’ eggs.
“Conservationists” have been complaining that taking the blood from crabs is a cruel and unusual punishment, and for what exactly?
They argue that once a crab’s blood is taken and the creature is tossed back into the Atlantic it often dies a slow, morbid death.
No crab, no eggs for the piping plovers to eat.
David Mizrahi, a vice president of bird-conservation nonprofit Audubon, said a shift toward synthetic blood “will save thousands of horseshoe crabs a year, protecting shorebirds and coastal ecosystems, while also providing supply chain stability and ensuring patient safety. It’s a powerful and responsible step forward for all concerned.”
Horseshoe crabs were crawling along the shallow sandy bottoms of earth’s oceans 200 million years before the first dinosaurs came on the scene.
But some populations have declined dramatically with the rise of humans, raising concerns they may be headed toward extinction.
One of the biggest drivers of their population collapse is their unsustainable harvest for their blood to be used in pharmaceuticals.
Horseshoe crabs have been described as “living fossils,” having changed little since they first appeared 250 million years ago, and similar-looking fossil remnants extend back to 445 million years ago
Maine Horseshoe Crabs Finally Get The Respect They Deserve – Here’s To Another 400 Million Years
By Ted Cohen
