Natural History Wanderings

NPR reports how the necessary bleeding of Horseshoe Crabs is destroying the Red Knot population. Here are a few excerpts:

Horseshoe crabs used to be everywhere. Millions of years before dinosaurs roamed the planet, each spring, the hard-shelled creatures gathered to mate in massive mounds along the beaches of the Atlantic coast. Later, migratory shorebirds like the robin-sized red knot learned to fly up from South America to join them for a feast. The crabs’ eggs gave the birds the energy they needed to keep flying north to breed in the Arctic.

A synthetic alternative was later invented and has since been approved in Europe as an equivalent to the ingredient that requires horseshoe crabs.

The federal government designated one of the migratory shorebird species that depends on horseshoe crab eggs, the red knot, as threatened. About 94% of red knots have disappeared over the past 40 years

Read full to listen to the full article and see photos at How the Unnecessary Bleeding of Horseshoe Crabs is Devastating Red Knots