July 13, 2022 • 42 mins
The fact that we rely on Horseshoe crab blood to test all of our internal medical devices and vaccines is stunning! And the fact that we are affecting the environment in such a drastic fashion yet have a synthetic alternative that we can turn to is wild. Yet we still remain crab vampires in the name of healthcare!
In this episode we learn all about Horsehsoecrabs, why we need them, what we do with their blood and why you should care! We talk with Dr. Larry Niles from the Horseshoecrab Recovery Coalition and boy do we get into it!
For more information about the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition Click here. Check out Dr. Larry Niles blog about his work right here.
The ABP is establishing a conservation Aquarium in the Prairies to help tell the Story of Water.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Evans (00:06):
Welcome to today's deep dive episode today. We're
talking all things horseshoecrab. So horseshoe crabs, why
should I care? And what doesthat have anything to do with
the medical industry, horseshoecrab blood is uniquely sensitive
to bacteria. It's so sensitive,in fact that it actually is
(00:27):
being used as the number onetest to be able to understand if
a biomedical instrument will beable to be implanted in the body
or not. So we actually use a lotof horseshoe crab blood to test
for contaminants. Annually, webleed about 600,000 horseshoe
crabs simply to just use theirblood to test for contaminants.
(00:48):
And this along with the industryof actually catching horseshoe
crabs to use them as bait tocatch other fish has led to a
big decrease in the populationof horseshoe crabs along the
eastern seaboard of the UnitedStates, which has led to a huge
decrease in a lot of otherspecies, as this is a keystone
species that supports the lifeof basically the entire
ecosystem. So today, we'retalking with Dr. Larry Niles,
(01:12):
from the horseshoe crab recoverycoalition. We'll be learning all
about the sustainability of thisindustry, the ecosystem effects
and why we should actually careand also about the synthetic
alternative that we aren't usingright now. I mean, it's crazy.
We're still bleeding crabs sothat we can test medical
devices. How is this affectingso sit back relax and get ready
(01:35):
to learn a little bit abouthorseshoe crabs? That sir G.
nippy oh me No, in zero to marrya child why water we doing? And
(02:18):
how can we do better? Your onestop shop for everything water
related from discussing waterits use and the organisms that
depend on it for all the globalissues that you really never
knew all had to do with water.
I'm your host, David Evans fromthe aquatic biosphere project.
And I just want to ask yousomething. What are we doing?
(02:41):
How can we do better?
Hi there and welcome to anotherdeep dive episode of the water
we doing Podcast. Today. I'mspeaking with Dr. Larry Niles,
(03:03):
from the horseshoe crab recoverycoalition. So Larry, do you mind
just introducing yourself givingour listeners a little bit about
yourself and the horseshoe crabrecovery coalition.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe C (03:14):
So I am a partner in a small group
called Wildlife Restorationpartnerships that focuses on
research and primarily onshorebirds, particularly the red
dot and horseshoe crab. But wealso do management of beaches
for horseshoe crab spawninghabitat, and other reasons
(03:35):
resiliency and so on our workcenters in Delaware Bay, but we
do work from the CanadianArctic, you know, in the area of
Southampton Island to VictoriaIsland. And we've done work in
Mangan islands in Quebec. But wealso do work all the way south.
We've done work and turned offway ago, Chile and we have a
(03:57):
project now and go into PashBrazil. So you know, we do a lot
of work on shorebird sleptbecause we are sort of home base
is Delaware Bay. It's a lotabout horseshoe crabs because
Delaware Bay is one of the topworld stopovers for Arctic
nesting shorebirds who you knowmake these dramatically long
(04:19):
distance migrations down toturtle fly go 10,000 mile
journey and then a on their wayback. They have to cross the
ocean to get back to NorthAmerica, deplete all their
resources because they're flyingup there seven days at a time
and then they arrive in DelawareBay and they are ecological
(04:40):
circumstances they arrived justas horseshoe crabs start
spawning on the bay beaches.
They lay pony eggs in clustersabout six inches deep but
there's so many crabs that aftera certain amount of spawning
every new crab that comes in tolay eggs digs up the eggs of
Another crab so they come up tothe surface and and that way the
(05:02):
birds can eat them and theireggs so they birds quickly gain
weight on Edit time in springwhen all the natural resources
are at their lowest level, theseeggs allow them to build weight
at, you know, the highest ratesin the world. Some birds we've
caught and recaptured havegained in that just that
(05:22):
intervening period 15 grams aday. And when they arrive in
Delaware Bay, they're only about120 grams. So 15 grams a day
very quickly, they get up to theweight that they need to go on
to the Arctic, where they haveenough fat that they can start
nesting and lay eggs. And thenby the time the chicks hatch,
(05:43):
the Arctic is thawed and thenyou know, life goes on. So the
idea of the crab horseshoe crabrecovery coalition, we started
out trying to build theresources for protection of
crabs and Delaware Bay. But thenwe quickly realized that there's
network of people that alreadyexist, they care about crabs, in
(06:06):
all the places where they nowbreed. So very small populations
that go from Florida to almostdomaine, but see all of those
populations have suffered thesame threat that Delaware Bay is
threatened by which isoverharvest for bait fishers
will use crabs for bait to catchbait fish, they use bait to
(06:30):
catch bait. The main problem isthe crabs are also bled for the
biochemical lysate. And that isan unregulated industry that is
just creating havoc and all thesmall populations along the
coast. So our strategy here isto try to work with groups all
(06:52):
along the coast sort of bind ustogether with this common thread
and try to rebuild population tothe Delaware Bay level, but all
along the coast. So essentially,we want to reestablish this
historic resource for shorebirdsthat once existed, but now is
(07:13):
lost because all thesepopulations are over harvest.
David Evans (07:17):
That is Yeah, that's a it just strikes me as
thinking of these horseshoecrabs almost as the only
truckstop along the way betweenChile and the Arctic and the the
main refueling station. Andyeah, it's it's it's a super,
it's really interesting. Somyself on now is quite young. I
(07:44):
have fond memories of being downin Florida visiting family and
finding horseshoe crabs that hadwashed up on the beach, and just
thinking they were the absolutestrangest things I've ever seen.
So do you mind just for thosewho may not be familiar with a
horseshoe crab? Could you justdescribe them, and what they
(08:04):
look like and where they can befound?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horsesho (08:07):
Sure.
First of all, they're 425million year old species. So
they've been around the blockand they look like it. The goal
here isn't to save the crabsbecause you know, they're going
to be here long after humans arelost. So the goal is to try to
build up the populations to makethem more robust. So the crabs
(08:29):
are, you know, roughly aboutdish size, the males are smaller
females could get to the size ofa baseball home plate. The males
could also get fairly large, butthey're that size differences
consistent throughout the wholerange. They vary in size as you
(08:49):
go north. The populations aremore or less genetically
defined, but there's a lot ofoverlap. So it's hard to say you
know, this crab is from DelawareBay or that crab is from
somewhere else. They typicallyneed a sandy substrate to dig
their eggs which is about sixinches down. But they've also
(09:12):
laid eggs in Shell rakes likeyou know, oyster piles of oyster
shells and they also nest inMarsh marks. The difference is
the productivity like theproductivity of a nest of eggs
laid in Marsh mark is very lowbecause the decomposing marks
(09:34):
give off sulfurous you know airthat kills the eggs, so you get
very low survival in the shellrakes. The survival is probably
good but they have difficultydigging into the brakes. So
sandy beaches are the besthabitat. We've done a lot of
work constructing beaches forhorseshoe crabs spawning and for
(09:59):
people and the best beaches areabout two feet deep of sand so
that there's lots of room forthem to dig but also, there's a
substantial area, buffering themfrom whatever underlies the
sand, in most places, Muckunderlies sand. So, you know,
(10:19):
you got to worry about thosehydrogen sulfide gases, so they
don't use it and they need lowenergy. You don't usually see
crabs spawning on Atlantic coastbeaches because there's too much
wave action. But like it inlets,you know, you have a sandy spit.
And then behind that Tandy spitis really the typical habitat
(10:42):
all along the east coast. Butthere are special places like
Delaware Bay, Chincoteague Bay,Jamaica Bay in New York, where
the bays themselves are lowenergy, but they're still
saline, and they have sandybeaches. So then that's the
place is where you get millionsof crabs coming ashore. These
(11:05):
events are, you know, like yousee in around the world where
you have these terrific spawningevents, salmon dying in streams
or grunion on the Atlantic onthe Pacific coast. In this case,
this sort of marquee use is theshorebirds. But in every place
where these eggs are allowed tobuild up to densities that we're
(11:29):
talking about, mostly eggs aregoing to the marine fish and
crabs. In Delaware Bay, forexample, before they overall
harvested the crabs down to thelevel that they are now we used
to have a vibrant sport fisherylike weak fish, there used to be
somewhere in the area of two to3 million pounds a year were
(11:51):
harvested either by sportfishers or by commercial
fisheries. Now it's down to44,000 pounds, because the loss
of the crabs and the loss of theeggs and the loss of the young
that hatch from those eggs, pullthe rug out from a lot of the
forage fish that the sport fishare eating, because all those
(12:15):
species are also breeding. Andso they're making use of
horseshoe crab eggs. And so inother words, when I'm trying to
say is that the horseshoe crabsrepresent a productive layer of
almost all estuaries on the EastCoast. And so fishers are
defeating their own purpose bycatching them for something is
(12:38):
insignificant is bait.
David Evans (12:44):
Yeah, they're, they're really undermining their
entire purpose with it sounds tome like you're describing a
keystone species that withoutthem being at that level, that
the entire ecosystem changes.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horsesh (12:59):
That's right. That's exactly the right
term.
David Evans (13:02):
Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. And
just thinking about thatexchange of energy from ocean to
upland systems, and especiallywith birds that are migrating
across continents, and inchanging how those those energy
cycles work with providing foodto them. That's yeah, there's a
(13:27):
lot there's a lot to go on here.
I'm glad we're talking.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (13:31):
And see that shapes that
coalition's, too when we firststarted out, we thought, you
know, we bind together the usualplayers, you know, conservation
group, and we did like NationalWildlife Federation, National
Audubon defenders for wildlife,they're all part of the
coalition. But see, becausewe're talking about a valuable
(13:52):
biochemical. You know, soonwe'll talk about eventually, it
also brings in Eli Lilly, thedrug company, as part of the
coalition. And PhysiciansCommittee for Responsible
Medicine is part of thecoalition. But we also have
groups like Manhattan defenders,and sport fishing guides
(14:12):
association. So you know, whatwe're doing is binding together
a coalition that sort ofaddresses this very difficult
conservation problem. It's onethat plagues every natural
resource right now, whether it'sforestry or agriculture industry
is consuming, not just the sortof top level product of a
(14:35):
system, they're commodifyingevery layer of that system. So
that right, basically removingall the productivity from
ecosystems. And, you know, ourwhole climate change initiative
depends on functioningecosystems. So it's an
interesting problem, as youknow, I'm sure you see, but it's
(14:56):
also an interesting solution.
You can't rely on the normalmethod, a bunch of conservation
groups get together and say thisis what it should be. This is
more like, let's all worktogether to try to figure out
how we can solve this.
David Evans (15:11):
It almost sounds like a joke of a bird biologist,
a sports Fisher andpharmaceutical representative
walk into a bar or somethinglike that. It's just it seems
like a weird, weird group ofpeople that work together. So I
guess on that note, you alreadymentioned lysates, and of
(15:31):
horseshoe crabs being harvestedfor the biomedical field, can
you just give a bit of an introto that and how that started and
where we are with that today?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horsesho (15:40):
Yeah, so every medical product drugs,
hip implants, pacemakers,whatever are tested with a
biochemical from horseshoe crabblood called lysate. So what it
does is the drug companies havecreated a testing assay that
allows them to determine ifthere's any contaminant in the
(16:01):
components, like they test waterand all the various components
of drugs, and then they testthem in their final development,
so that the public can beassured that there's no
contamination in these drugs orin, you know, whatever device
going into your body. And see,this is a great improvement,
(16:21):
because previously, they usedrabbits to test. And so that's
cruel, obviously cruel. And sothis is innovation for sure. The
problem now is that the peoplewho are doing the bleeding,
which are not the the giantpharmaceutical companies, there
(16:42):
are multinational companies thatare segments of multinational
companies that are basicallyjust after profit. And, you
know, they're working with theagencies, who are really just
concerned about creating baitfor industry. So, you know,
these two groups are sort of,you know, in the same pocket,
(17:04):
and the bleeding of the crabs,they bleed them for eight
minutes. So they put them up ona spike into the heart, and they
bleed them as much as they'llbleed for eight minutes.
Killing, they say 15%, peerreviewed replications of the
bleeding process, say 30%. Butit could be more because an
(17:29):
eight minute bleed affectsbigger crabs than smaller
cracks. So a small crab mightbleed 30% of their blood,
whereas a bigger female couldlead up to half their blood
volume. And so then they justlet them go. And nobody's
tracking how many die after theyleave. And from an outside view,
(17:52):
I should say, at least 30% aredying in the process of
bleeding. And then they're dyingwhen they're being caught
because they're catchingwithdrawals. And you know, so
that's a very brutal processthat leaves a lot of animals. So
what's the total cost of this?
We don't, it would be good if itwas regulated in such a way that
we could examine what they'redoing. But sort of arcane rules
(18:16):
of marine fisheries in the US,allows this company to hide all
their data. So nobody can seewhat's actually happening. We
just had to take their word forit. And these are multinational
companies, I don't know how manymultinational companies you
would take yourand see the other problem is, is
(18:39):
actually an opportunity. And asynthetic now exists. So we
could go to the third stage herestarted out rabbits, and it went
to animal another animal butless brutal than the previous
method. But now we could go to asynthetic. And that synthetic
was actually developed like over10 years ago by a scientist in
(19:02):
Japan. And then one of the drugcompanies, one of the bleeding
companies bought the patent didnothing, so essentially kept it
out of the market. The patentexpired several years ago. And
so since then, drug companieslike Eli Lilly, have already
used the synthetic for boththeir product development and
(19:24):
for final product testing drugcompany, Pfizer just did a head
to head test between the LAL andthe synthetic and found no
differences. But all the otherleading companies have synthetic
alternatives. One company thatdoes most of the bleeding,
Charles River associates, itcurrently doesn't have synthetic
(19:47):
alternatives developed. So theychallenged the efficacy of the
synthetic and published thepaper that said that they were
not equivalent. They did a test.
But groups within our coalitionlike Physicians for Responsible
Medicine and another grouprevive and restore. And the
(20:11):
companies that are involvedbiome Are you is a company in
our coalition along with EliLilly, it basically went to work
and found that the companyCharles River had sort of
deliberately manipulated bystarting with something called
Dirty water, which is water thatis not purified before it goes
(20:36):
into product development. And sothis 30 Water includes a
contaminant that they knew thesynthetic wouldn't detect. But
no drug company uses 30 water.
So it was a sort of artificialrestriction that led the FDA and
the US Pharmacopoeia toessentially reverse their
(20:57):
earlier positions that they weregoing to include the synthetic
and existing chapter that wouldallow the companies to just use
Lal or RFC, depending on whatthey wanted. All of a sudden,
they said that we required a newchapter, which would require all
the companies to do testing. Andthen eventually, they would say
(21:21):
that Lal and RFC are equivalent.
So right now, it's in thatperiod of flux. I think it the
way it looks is because ofPfizer's new data. And because
of the influence of the drugcompanies and our influence,
(21:44):
because the other side of theequation here is that the
pharmaceutical companies havecommitted to not using animal
testing, if they don't have to.
And so this is pitting themagainst that ideal. I hope that
it'll change this year.
David Evans (22:03):
It really brings to light especially with the
pandemic and all the talk aboutvaccines, and just thinking that
everyone who has been vaccinatedhas horseshoe crabs to think for
that we normally think of animaltesting, associated more with I
mean, rabbits as had beenpreviously done and, and
thinking of like a more of aMalian counterpart to test on
(22:26):
mammals such as ourselves, butit just strikes me as being such
a not a not an easy connectionto make of thinking as horseshoe
crabs as being the as horseshoecrabs having something in their
blood that's been with them for400 million years, that's really
helped to protect them that nowwe can harness to protect us and
(22:47):
and, and how we we procreatesynthetic everything it seems
these days, but we haven'tswitched to, we're still
bleeding horseshoe crabs to totest medical devices and
ourselves. It just seems it justseems quite archaic, archaic for
this day and age.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe C (23:04):
It is I agree. And you know, it's
money. You know, there'sbusinesses, there's investors,
there's, you know, everybody hasexpectation of profit. This is
natural resources in our age. Imean, everybody wants to make
money off of every single layerof our ecological world. And you
(23:29):
know, it doesn't work that way.
You start pulling out theblocks, you know, and eventually
the whole thing's going to comecrashing down. And, you know, as
I said earlier, pulling out thehorseshoe crab block was a
significant ecological actionthat nobody even realized
because it was pulled out beforeanyone knew of the value like
(23:51):
even here in Delaware Bay. Thecrabs spawn was amazing. It was
I have a 1986 video of crabsmining. The harvest of horseshoe
crabs was only maybe 100,000 Ayear or so in Delaware Bay. And
then within a few years, it wentup to 2.5 million. And it was
(24:12):
because the way you wanted baitfor a conch fishery, and very
quickly, they the egg densitieson Delaware Bay went from like
50,000 eggs per square meter onthe surface two now went as low
as 7000. Right now it's about10,000. But in 1986, I could see
(24:34):
in this video that there waswind rows of eggs, so it wasn't
like there was an egg here likethere. It was piles of eggs
pushed up by the wild tie, andyou know, all of that was going
into the sea. And, you know,birds fish crabs, mean Blue Claw
(24:54):
crabs, like all the The elementsof productivity that we enjoy.
were all like, you know, justknocked out at the knees. Nobody
documented these values beforeit occurred. And then we were
left with trying to restore itafter it was already done. And
(25:17):
see, that's where most of theother horseshoe crab populations
are now. And, you know, I haveto say it's where a lot of
natural resources are right now.
David Evans (25:31):
Yeah, it's another example in the water space of
tragedy of the commons, a commonresource where without
regulatory control, everyonejust has free will to go and do
what they want. And becausethey're not a big charismatic
species, they're not it's notit's not a panda out there that
were bleeding and everyone'slosing their minds over it's a
crab that you can't really can'treally look inside and connect
(25:53):
with it. But for for everyone,everyone who's listening to this
podcast, if you could give theman empowered speech of why they
should care. Why, why should thelisteners care about horseshoe
crabs?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (26:06):
For the people in Canada, I have to
say there's a value, because allof this craziness led to a
listing of the red not the rednot went from, you know, in
Delaware Bay went from 95,000birds each spring. Last year,
it's now down to 6800. This is aCanadian species. Yes, there's
(26:30):
two sub species, one's breedingin the western part of the
Arctic in Alaska. And then thesegment that we're working on is
all of Nunavut, basically. Sothere's that, you know,
Canadians, I think, have aspecial or interest and Canadian
Fish and Wildlife Service andEnvironment Canada have taking
(26:54):
really leadership roles and inhelping defend the birds, to
some extent more so than USagencies, state agencies and US
state agencies forget abouttheir most of them are dominated
by marine fisheries interests. Ithink, you know, from a wider
perspective, it's aprecautionary tale, because if
(27:16):
we're ever going to deal withclimate change, we need electric
cars, we need to restrictmethane, you know, all that
stuff. That's certain. But thebest way to sequester carbon is
that functioning ecosystems andfully functioning ecosystems not
like, you know, yeah, you cansee Quester carbon in a form
(27:39):
field. But you're not going toget the same carbon benefits as
you work from a fullyfunctioning ecosystem. The third
thing is that we like seafood.
And, you know, if you want toeat seafood, and you need to
have a productive system, wedepend on these animals for Lal,
but who knows why, what wedepend on them in the future.
(28:02):
See, I think to some extent,like I was chief of the
Endangered Species Program forthe state of New Jersey, for,
you know, most of my career, theemphasis was always on
endangered species. It's funnybecause you can look at the arc
of my career, and you could say,you try to sell this, you try to
sell this, you try so that youend up with horseshoe crab or
(28:26):
some other counterpart. Toprotect endangered species, you
need to have functioningecosystems, and you can't just
protect a species, independentof all of the world that it
lives within. You know, theprecautionary tale here, I think
overall, is we need the systemswe need it for danger species,
(28:47):
we need it for, you know, ourown edification for our own
health. But it used to be theargument was take away a block,
you take away this block,eventually systems will fail.
I'm here to say the systems arehave already failed. Now we need
to start rebuilding them. Andthe way to do that is restore
all these other values. Like anexample of these other values is
(29:10):
here in Delaware Bay were whilethey were destroying the crabs,
they were arguing, we got to dothis, we need the jobs. And so
they basically destroyed therobust population. And then in
the process, we lost 1000s ofjobs because all the Marine is
now are closed because there'sno fish. But the restaurants
(29:31):
have closed overnight. moteltype things are closed the
income from dramatic levels oftourism, it's all gone. So the
make 10 jobs or whatever it was20 jobs. We've lost economic
support for our communities.
(29:51):
Like that's the price that wepay for allowing industry to
just come in and take and thenleave
David Evans (29:59):
it Yep, that's that's a very, very compelling
case, to care about horseshoecrabs. So I guess what are what
are some of the ways that we'vetalked about horseshoe crabs
their value? What's beingcurrently done with them? So I
guess, what are some of thestrategies that are being
(30:20):
employed by the horseshoe crabrecovery coalition, or the
groups that are interested inthe recovery of this, of this,
this population to previouslevels to support these
ecosystems? So what is it morelooking at? At policy levels
that being at being an advocateat a government events? Or? Or
(30:41):
is it talking to industryspecifically, actually
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (30:43):
sort of all of it so the coalition
has several working teams. Theone group though is persisted is
the LAL RFC group. So that'spopulated by the companies by
conservation groups by thegroup's like positions, like a
wide variety of people havedifferent interests, and arrow
(31:07):
working together? To figure outwhat the next action should be
just a series of actions likeletters to the US farm and
compare the one group physiciansat a round table with industry
reps. So that's one part of itis doing everything we can to
get RFC adopted, because weconsider that a basic management
(31:31):
goal. The second is that we havesort of several groups working
on policy issues. If you take ahorseshoe crab, or you causing a
take of an endangered species,red knots, like that's a big
question, right? The agencieshaven't really made that
declaration, but we think it'sthe case. If you have 10 Crabs,
(31:53):
you might have a nest in thesand that never go to the
surface. But if you have 100Crabs, then you'll have eggs on
the surface. In other words,every crab counts. So a take of
a crab should be a take of thespecies. So that sort of basic
policy issue is behind a lot ofour other actions, like we're
(32:13):
reaching out to the AtlanticStates Marine Fisheries
Commission, we're reaching outto individual states, the
regulatory systems within eachstate. And to do that, we've
also created state level workinggroups. So these are groups of
people who belong to thecoalition, but their actions are
(32:35):
restricted to that particularstate. So right now we have I
think we have eight stateworking groups from Georgia to
Massachusetts. Like, forexample, the New York working
group helped introducelegislation last year that got
tabled for political reasons,but they're working on state
(32:57):
legislation. Right now, whatwe're starting up is where we
did a pilot last year, but we'regoing into full mode now is
working off the state workinggroups, develop teams of
volunteers, that will go out andcount crab and eggs, tag them,
(33:19):
and also carry out stewardship.
So if there's shorebirds there,then protect the shorebirds and
to start programs to flip crabsbecause the or rescue them from
impingement. So saving crabslives like we do that on
Delaware Bay, a group calledreturn a favor, but that idea we
would like to spread. So that'sthe sort of multi prong approach
(33:44):
of the coalition.
David Evans (33:48):
That's great. It's an organic thing that continues
to snowball out. That'swonderful to hear.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (33:53):
You know, I'm a lifelong biologist
as yourself, although you'rehalf my age of that. But I think
this is unique, you know, it's45 different groups. It's not
just conservation groups, it'swide range of groups. And we're
not competing. And see, I feellike that's one of the problems
(34:15):
in conservation right now, isthat I'm going to say this
starkly. I think that, you know,our agencies are being overly
influenced by the short termneeds of industry. And
conservation groups are left tofight for money competing
against each other because it'susually grants. I mean, you
(34:37):
know, this, yeah, you're goingfor grants. You go into
foundations, you're looking forrich donors. And it's hard for
conservation groups to worktogether vitally. I mean, they
all work together because we'reall in it for the same reason.
I'm not trying to disparagethat. It's just that there's
that competitive aspect thatfracture means the constituency
(35:02):
into smaller political voices.
And you know, so that you end upwith a foe, the short term use
of our natural resources, that'sheavily influencing government.
And then you have this fractiousgroup of concerned citizens that
probably numbers the majority ofour population, but can't
(35:24):
develop the voice to makechange. So I think the craft
coalition is, is sort ofbreaking the mold there or
pulling together people. We'reworking collaboratively. Right
now we have a proposal into theAtlantic flyway shorebird
initiative. And if we are ableto get money, we're going to
share it with the state workinggroups. It's not like our
(35:47):
groups, working groups, theseare built from whatever works
best in each state. So you know,we're trying to develop a new
perspective on conservation.
David Evans (36:01):
I'm thoroughly impressed and very excited and
yet passionate people fromdifferent walks of life all
working together, but being ableto actually come together as one
voice and, and that's reallyspecial in this field. So I
guess how could someone who'slistening to this podcast, maybe
they're up here in Canada? Howcould they lend a hand and how
(36:23):
could they help horseshoe crabsor help horseshoe crab
coalition?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horses (36:26):
Series?
No breeding I don't know thatthere's any breeding horseshoe
crabs in Canada are unsure.
David Evans (36:32):
Yeah, we'll have to do some research and they'll add
that to the notes and to hear
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe Cr (36:36):
I think they run out with me
what's possible that they're inthe Maritimes so that's one
thing is to start finding out ifthere is any,
David Evans (36:45):
oh, we do have horseshoe crabs in Canada,
except they are 100 million yearold fossils in Manitoba. So
currently know breedingpopulations.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (36:54):
You know, funding of course, we have
a new button on our website thatwill allow people to donate. I
have to tell you that you know,we do a trapping of shorebirds
every year. We've been doing itfor now 25 years and that team
is volunteer base and a lot ofour team is coming from Canada
(37:15):
from Toronto Mark pack from theRoyal Ontario Museum and, and
then also the people ofEnvironment Canada like Paul
Smith, they provide a lot too. Iguess I could say that the
opportunity to volunteer forCanadians it would have to be
like a vacation come down toDelaware Bay, spend a week and
(37:36):
volunteer we have a volunteercrab rescue. We have volunteer
stewardship for each of thebeaches protecting the red
knots, we have a sort of brandof volunteer ism for doing
surveys, of course you crabsdirected by a staff person, but
the people doing the tagging orthe counting are our volunteers.
(38:00):
The key thing is not a day, youknow, not a few days, enough
time so that if you're trained,right, you could play it out for
enough time that it's worth it.
And then there's money, youknow, you can always give money.
Yeah.
David Evans (38:17):
Exactly. That's, that's wonderful. It sounds like
a great vacation to be honest.
Weather is great.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (38:23):
Here in Callaway, and it's one of the
I think it's the main reason whywe have Canadians because they
just need to get
David Evans (38:30):
snow. Exactly. So I guess my final question is what
led you to being involved inthis project and what led you
into this career path?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe Cr (38:40):
I you know, it's probably a
familiar story for you. I mean,when I was young, I was a hunter
and Fisher and my father, youknow, so I, I was one of those
people. I knew what he wanted todo. When I went to college, I
wanted to be a game warden. Andso then it just went on from
there. I got a master's degreeat Penn State, eventually a PhD.
(39:03):
But after I had my master'sdegree was all working. You
know, I worked for Georgia Fishand Wildlife, I worked for
Clemson ventually for New Jerseyfish and wildlife and now on my
own, and I'm 70 years old, so Ishouldn't be retired. But, you
know, this is what I love to do.
If I retired, this is what Iwould do. I actually did retire
but I kept going. The reason isbecause you know, like a lot of
(39:30):
people I love this work.
David Evans (39:34):
Oh, that's that's fantastic to hear. It's still
work, but when you love it, it'shard to let it go. Thank you so
much for speaking with me today.
I feel like I've learned so muchabout horseshoe crabs and it's
interesting to hear how maybesomething that gets overlooked
by a lot of people can just playsuch an important integral role
and then really can become a wayfor people to connect dots that
seemed very difficult to connectpreviously. So thank you so much
(39:57):
for speaking with To me when Ipost the show notes for this
episode, there'll be links tothe website for the horseshoe
crab coalition and for thesocial media as well them so
that listeners will be able tofind and connect with the
coalition as well.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horsesho (40:13):
Thank you, David, this was interesting
to talk to you and I appreciatethe opportunity to talk about
the coalition's.
David Evans (40:26):
Thanks for listening to today's episode all
about horseshoe crabs, medicaldevices, and what we're doing
about this syntheticalternative. Thanks so much to
Dr. Larry Niles. He is a greatguest. And I learned so much
from him just so excited to makemy way down to Delaware Bay and
see the crab spawn for myself.
For more information about thehorseshoe crab recovery
coalition. You can find out moreabout their work at H s crab
(40:48):
recovery.org. And I'll leave alink for his own website as well
where you can keep up to datewith what's going on in the crab
world and in the bird world. Andbasically, everything you need
to know about Delaware Bay, besure to check out the show
notes. As I'll leave links forall of these plus lots of other
information, just in case it'sjust whet your palate and you
(41:09):
can't wait to learn more. Besure to check out the show
notes. It'll all be there. I'mthe host and producer David
Evans. And I just like to thankthe rest of the team
specifically Paul Polman, LeeBurton, and the rest of the
aquatic biosphere board. Thanksfor all of your help. And to
learn more about the aquaticbiosphere project. And what
we're doing right here inAlberta telling the story of
(41:30):
water, you can check us out ataquatic biosphere.ca. And we
also have launched our new mediacompany, a b n aquatic biosphere
network, which you can find atthe public place dot online and
search for the aquatic biospherenetwork channel, where we will
actually be posting all of thevideo episodes that we're going
(41:50):
to be creating this year. Sotune in. They will be out for
the next little while, but veryexcited to start sharing video
content as well of ourinterviews. If you have any
questions or comments about theshow, we'd love to hear them.
Email us at conservation at aclock biosphere.org. Please
don't forget to like, share andsubscribe. Leave us a review. It
(42:11):
really helps us out. Thanks andit's been a splash
Welcome to today's deep dive episode today. We're
talking all things horseshoecrab. So horseshoe crabs, why
should I care? And what doesthat have anything to do with
the medical industry, horseshoecrab blood is uniquely sensitive
to bacteria. It's so sensitive,in fact that it actually is
(00:27):
being used as the number onetest to be able to understand if
a biomedical instrument will beable to be implanted in the body
or not. So we actually use a lotof horseshoe crab blood to test
for contaminants. Annually, webleed about 600,000 horseshoe
crabs simply to just use theirblood to test for contaminants.
(00:48):
And this along with the industryof actually catching horseshoe
crabs to use them as bait tocatch other fish has led to a
big decrease in the populationof horseshoe crabs along the
eastern seaboard of the UnitedStates, which has led to a huge
decrease in a lot of otherspecies, as this is a keystone
species that supports the lifeof basically the entire
ecosystem. So today, we'retalking with Dr. Larry Niles,
(01:12):
from the horseshoe crab recoverycoalition. We'll be learning all
about the sustainability of thisindustry, the ecosystem effects
and why we should actually careand also about the synthetic
alternative that we aren't usingright now. I mean, it's crazy.
We're still bleeding crabs sothat we can test medical
devices. How is this affectingso sit back relax and get ready
(01:35):
to learn a little bit abouthorseshoe crabs? That sir G.
nippy oh me No, in zero to marrya child why water we doing? And
(02:18):
how can we do better? Your onestop shop for everything water
related from discussing waterits use and the organisms that
depend on it for all the globalissues that you really never
knew all had to do with water.
I'm your host, David Evans fromthe aquatic biosphere project.
And I just want to ask yousomething. What are we doing?
(02:41):
How can we do better?
Hi there and welcome to anotherdeep dive episode of the water
we doing Podcast. Today. I'mspeaking with Dr. Larry Niles,
(03:03):
from the horseshoe crab recoverycoalition. So Larry, do you mind
just introducing yourself givingour listeners a little bit about
yourself and the horseshoe crabrecovery coalition.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe C (03:14):
So I am a partner in a small group
called Wildlife Restorationpartnerships that focuses on
research and primarily onshorebirds, particularly the red
dot and horseshoe crab. But wealso do management of beaches
for horseshoe crab spawninghabitat, and other reasons
(03:35):
resiliency and so on our workcenters in Delaware Bay, but we
do work from the CanadianArctic, you know, in the area of
Southampton Island to VictoriaIsland. And we've done work in
Mangan islands in Quebec. But wealso do work all the way south.
We've done work and turned offway ago, Chile and we have a
(03:57):
project now and go into PashBrazil. So you know, we do a lot
of work on shorebird sleptbecause we are sort of home base
is Delaware Bay. It's a lotabout horseshoe crabs because
Delaware Bay is one of the topworld stopovers for Arctic
nesting shorebirds who you knowmake these dramatically long
(04:19):
distance migrations down toturtle fly go 10,000 mile
journey and then a on their wayback. They have to cross the
ocean to get back to NorthAmerica, deplete all their
resources because they're flyingup there seven days at a time
and then they arrive in DelawareBay and they are ecological
(04:40):
circumstances they arrived justas horseshoe crabs start
spawning on the bay beaches.
They lay pony eggs in clustersabout six inches deep but
there's so many crabs that aftera certain amount of spawning
every new crab that comes in tolay eggs digs up the eggs of
Another crab so they come up tothe surface and and that way the
(05:02):
birds can eat them and theireggs so they birds quickly gain
weight on Edit time in springwhen all the natural resources
are at their lowest level, theseeggs allow them to build weight
at, you know, the highest ratesin the world. Some birds we've
caught and recaptured havegained in that just that
(05:22):
intervening period 15 grams aday. And when they arrive in
Delaware Bay, they're only about120 grams. So 15 grams a day
very quickly, they get up to theweight that they need to go on
to the Arctic, where they haveenough fat that they can start
nesting and lay eggs. And thenby the time the chicks hatch,
(05:43):
the Arctic is thawed and thenyou know, life goes on. So the
idea of the crab horseshoe crabrecovery coalition, we started
out trying to build theresources for protection of
crabs and Delaware Bay. But thenwe quickly realized that there's
network of people that alreadyexist, they care about crabs, in
(06:06):
all the places where they nowbreed. So very small populations
that go from Florida to almostdomaine, but see all of those
populations have suffered thesame threat that Delaware Bay is
threatened by which isoverharvest for bait fishers
will use crabs for bait to catchbait fish, they use bait to
(06:30):
catch bait. The main problem isthe crabs are also bled for the
biochemical lysate. And that isan unregulated industry that is
just creating havoc and all thesmall populations along the
coast. So our strategy here isto try to work with groups all
(06:52):
along the coast sort of bind ustogether with this common thread
and try to rebuild population tothe Delaware Bay level, but all
along the coast. So essentially,we want to reestablish this
historic resource for shorebirdsthat once existed, but now is
(07:13):
lost because all thesepopulations are over harvest.
David Evans (07:17):
That is Yeah, that's a it just strikes me as
thinking of these horseshoecrabs almost as the only
truckstop along the way betweenChile and the Arctic and the the
main refueling station. Andyeah, it's it's it's a super,
it's really interesting. Somyself on now is quite young. I
(07:44):
have fond memories of being downin Florida visiting family and
finding horseshoe crabs that hadwashed up on the beach, and just
thinking they were the absolutestrangest things I've ever seen.
So do you mind just for thosewho may not be familiar with a
horseshoe crab? Could you justdescribe them, and what they
(08:04):
look like and where they can befound?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horsesho (08:07):
Sure.
First of all, they're 425million year old species. So
they've been around the blockand they look like it. The goal
here isn't to save the crabsbecause you know, they're going
to be here long after humans arelost. So the goal is to try to
build up the populations to makethem more robust. So the crabs
(08:29):
are, you know, roughly aboutdish size, the males are smaller
females could get to the size ofa baseball home plate. The males
could also get fairly large, butthey're that size differences
consistent throughout the wholerange. They vary in size as you
(08:49):
go north. The populations aremore or less genetically
defined, but there's a lot ofoverlap. So it's hard to say you
know, this crab is from DelawareBay or that crab is from
somewhere else. They typicallyneed a sandy substrate to dig
their eggs which is about sixinches down. But they've also
(09:12):
laid eggs in Shell rakes likeyou know, oyster piles of oyster
shells and they also nest inMarsh marks. The difference is
the productivity like theproductivity of a nest of eggs
laid in Marsh mark is very lowbecause the decomposing marks
(09:34):
give off sulfurous you know airthat kills the eggs, so you get
very low survival in the shellrakes. The survival is probably
good but they have difficultydigging into the brakes. So
sandy beaches are the besthabitat. We've done a lot of
work constructing beaches forhorseshoe crabs spawning and for
(09:59):
people and the best beaches areabout two feet deep of sand so
that there's lots of room forthem to dig but also, there's a
substantial area, buffering themfrom whatever underlies the
sand, in most places, Muckunderlies sand. So, you know,
(10:19):
you got to worry about thosehydrogen sulfide gases, so they
don't use it and they need lowenergy. You don't usually see
crabs spawning on Atlantic coastbeaches because there's too much
wave action. But like it inlets,you know, you have a sandy spit.
And then behind that Tandy spitis really the typical habitat
(10:42):
all along the east coast. Butthere are special places like
Delaware Bay, Chincoteague Bay,Jamaica Bay in New York, where
the bays themselves are lowenergy, but they're still
saline, and they have sandybeaches. So then that's the
place is where you get millionsof crabs coming ashore. These
(11:05):
events are, you know, like yousee in around the world where
you have these terrific spawningevents, salmon dying in streams
or grunion on the Atlantic onthe Pacific coast. In this case,
this sort of marquee use is theshorebirds. But in every place
where these eggs are allowed tobuild up to densities that we're
(11:29):
talking about, mostly eggs aregoing to the marine fish and
crabs. In Delaware Bay, forexample, before they overall
harvested the crabs down to thelevel that they are now we used
to have a vibrant sport fisherylike weak fish, there used to be
somewhere in the area of two to3 million pounds a year were
(11:51):
harvested either by sportfishers or by commercial
fisheries. Now it's down to44,000 pounds, because the loss
of the crabs and the loss of theeggs and the loss of the young
that hatch from those eggs, pullthe rug out from a lot of the
forage fish that the sport fishare eating, because all those
(12:15):
species are also breeding. Andso they're making use of
horseshoe crab eggs. And so inother words, when I'm trying to
say is that the horseshoe crabsrepresent a productive layer of
almost all estuaries on the EastCoast. And so fishers are
defeating their own purpose bycatching them for something is
(12:38):
insignificant is bait.
David Evans (12:44):
Yeah, they're, they're really undermining their
entire purpose with it sounds tome like you're describing a
keystone species that withoutthem being at that level, that
the entire ecosystem changes.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horsesh (12:59):
That's right. That's exactly the right
term.
David Evans (13:02):
Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. And
just thinking about thatexchange of energy from ocean to
upland systems, and especiallywith birds that are migrating
across continents, and inchanging how those those energy
cycles work with providing foodto them. That's yeah, there's a
(13:27):
lot there's a lot to go on here.
I'm glad we're talking.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (13:31):
And see that shapes that
coalition's, too when we firststarted out, we thought, you
know, we bind together the usualplayers, you know, conservation
group, and we did like NationalWildlife Federation, National
Audubon defenders for wildlife,they're all part of the
coalition. But see, becausewe're talking about a valuable
(13:52):
biochemical. You know, soonwe'll talk about eventually, it
also brings in Eli Lilly, thedrug company, as part of the
coalition. And PhysiciansCommittee for Responsible
Medicine is part of thecoalition. But we also have
groups like Manhattan defenders,and sport fishing guides
(14:12):
association. So you know, whatwe're doing is binding together
a coalition that sort ofaddresses this very difficult
conservation problem. It's onethat plagues every natural
resource right now, whether it'sforestry or agriculture industry
is consuming, not just the sortof top level product of a
(14:35):
system, they're commodifyingevery layer of that system. So
that right, basically removingall the productivity from
ecosystems. And, you know, ourwhole climate change initiative
depends on functioningecosystems. So it's an
interesting problem, as youknow, I'm sure you see, but it's
(14:56):
also an interesting solution.
You can't rely on the normalmethod, a bunch of conservation
groups get together and say thisis what it should be. This is
more like, let's all worktogether to try to figure out
how we can solve this.
David Evans (15:11):
It almost sounds like a joke of a bird biologist,
a sports Fisher andpharmaceutical representative
walk into a bar or somethinglike that. It's just it seems
like a weird, weird group ofpeople that work together. So I
guess on that note, you alreadymentioned lysates, and of
(15:31):
horseshoe crabs being harvestedfor the biomedical field, can
you just give a bit of an introto that and how that started and
where we are with that today?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horsesho (15:40):
Yeah, so every medical product drugs,
hip implants, pacemakers,whatever are tested with a
biochemical from horseshoe crabblood called lysate. So what it
does is the drug companies havecreated a testing assay that
allows them to determine ifthere's any contaminant in the
(16:01):
components, like they test waterand all the various components
of drugs, and then they testthem in their final development,
so that the public can beassured that there's no
contamination in these drugs orin, you know, whatever device
going into your body. And see,this is a great improvement,
(16:21):
because previously, they usedrabbits to test. And so that's
cruel, obviously cruel. And sothis is innovation for sure. The
problem now is that the peoplewho are doing the bleeding,
which are not the the giantpharmaceutical companies, there
(16:42):
are multinational companies thatare segments of multinational
companies that are basicallyjust after profit. And, you
know, they're working with theagencies, who are really just
concerned about creating baitfor industry. So, you know,
these two groups are sort of,you know, in the same pocket,
(17:04):
and the bleeding of the crabs,they bleed them for eight
minutes. So they put them up ona spike into the heart, and they
bleed them as much as they'llbleed for eight minutes.
Killing, they say 15%, peerreviewed replications of the
bleeding process, say 30%. Butit could be more because an
(17:29):
eight minute bleed affectsbigger crabs than smaller
cracks. So a small crab mightbleed 30% of their blood,
whereas a bigger female couldlead up to half their blood
volume. And so then they justlet them go. And nobody's
tracking how many die after theyleave. And from an outside view,
(17:52):
I should say, at least 30% aredying in the process of
bleeding. And then they're dyingwhen they're being caught
because they're catchingwithdrawals. And you know, so
that's a very brutal processthat leaves a lot of animals. So
what's the total cost of this?
We don't, it would be good if itwas regulated in such a way that
we could examine what they'redoing. But sort of arcane rules
(18:16):
of marine fisheries in the US,allows this company to hide all
their data. So nobody can seewhat's actually happening. We
just had to take their word forit. And these are multinational
companies, I don't know how manymultinational companies you
would take yourand see the other problem is, is
(18:39):
actually an opportunity. And asynthetic now exists. So we
could go to the third stage herestarted out rabbits, and it went
to animal another animal butless brutal than the previous
method. But now we could go to asynthetic. And that synthetic
was actually developed like over10 years ago by a scientist in
(19:02):
Japan. And then one of the drugcompanies, one of the bleeding
companies bought the patent didnothing, so essentially kept it
out of the market. The patentexpired several years ago. And
so since then, drug companieslike Eli Lilly, have already
used the synthetic for boththeir product development and
(19:24):
for final product testing drugcompany, Pfizer just did a head
to head test between the LAL andthe synthetic and found no
differences. But all the otherleading companies have synthetic
alternatives. One company thatdoes most of the bleeding,
Charles River associates, itcurrently doesn't have synthetic
(19:47):
alternatives developed. So theychallenged the efficacy of the
synthetic and published thepaper that said that they were
not equivalent. They did a test.
But groups within our coalitionlike Physicians for Responsible
Medicine and another grouprevive and restore. And the
(20:11):
companies that are involvedbiome Are you is a company in
our coalition along with EliLilly, it basically went to work
and found that the companyCharles River had sort of
deliberately manipulated bystarting with something called
Dirty water, which is water thatis not purified before it goes
(20:36):
into product development. And sothis 30 Water includes a
contaminant that they knew thesynthetic wouldn't detect. But
no drug company uses 30 water.
So it was a sort of artificialrestriction that led the FDA and
the US Pharmacopoeia toessentially reverse their
(20:57):
earlier positions that they weregoing to include the synthetic
and existing chapter that wouldallow the companies to just use
Lal or RFC, depending on whatthey wanted. All of a sudden,
they said that we required a newchapter, which would require all
the companies to do testing. Andthen eventually, they would say
(21:21):
that Lal and RFC are equivalent.
So right now, it's in thatperiod of flux. I think it the
way it looks is because ofPfizer's new data. And because
of the influence of the drugcompanies and our influence,
(21:44):
because the other side of theequation here is that the
pharmaceutical companies havecommitted to not using animal
testing, if they don't have to.
And so this is pitting themagainst that ideal. I hope that
it'll change this year.
David Evans (22:03):
It really brings to light especially with the
pandemic and all the talk aboutvaccines, and just thinking that
everyone who has been vaccinatedhas horseshoe crabs to think for
that we normally think of animaltesting, associated more with I
mean, rabbits as had beenpreviously done and, and
thinking of like a more of aMalian counterpart to test on
(22:26):
mammals such as ourselves, butit just strikes me as being such
a not a not an easy connectionto make of thinking as horseshoe
crabs as being the as horseshoecrabs having something in their
blood that's been with them for400 million years, that's really
helped to protect them that nowwe can harness to protect us and
(22:47):
and, and how we we procreatesynthetic everything it seems
these days, but we haven'tswitched to, we're still
bleeding horseshoe crabs to totest medical devices and
ourselves. It just seems it justseems quite archaic, archaic for
this day and age.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe C (23:04):
It is I agree. And you know, it's
money. You know, there'sbusinesses, there's investors,
there's, you know, everybody hasexpectation of profit. This is
natural resources in our age. Imean, everybody wants to make
money off of every single layerof our ecological world. And you
(23:29):
know, it doesn't work that way.
You start pulling out theblocks, you know, and eventually
the whole thing's going to comecrashing down. And, you know, as
I said earlier, pulling out thehorseshoe crab block was a
significant ecological actionthat nobody even realized
because it was pulled out beforeanyone knew of the value like
(23:51):
even here in Delaware Bay. Thecrabs spawn was amazing. It was
I have a 1986 video of crabsmining. The harvest of horseshoe
crabs was only maybe 100,000 Ayear or so in Delaware Bay. And
then within a few years, it wentup to 2.5 million. And it was
(24:12):
because the way you wanted baitfor a conch fishery, and very
quickly, they the egg densitieson Delaware Bay went from like
50,000 eggs per square meter onthe surface two now went as low
as 7000. Right now it's about10,000. But in 1986, I could see
(24:34):
in this video that there waswind rows of eggs, so it wasn't
like there was an egg here likethere. It was piles of eggs
pushed up by the wild tie, andyou know, all of that was going
into the sea. And, you know,birds fish crabs, mean Blue Claw
(24:54):
crabs, like all the The elementsof productivity that we enjoy.
were all like, you know, justknocked out at the knees. Nobody
documented these values beforeit occurred. And then we were
left with trying to restore itafter it was already done. And
(25:17):
see, that's where most of theother horseshoe crab populations
are now. And, you know, I haveto say it's where a lot of
natural resources are right now.
David Evans (25:31):
Yeah, it's another example in the water space of
tragedy of the commons, a commonresource where without
regulatory control, everyonejust has free will to go and do
what they want. And becausethey're not a big charismatic
species, they're not it's notit's not a panda out there that
were bleeding and everyone'slosing their minds over it's a
crab that you can't really can'treally look inside and connect
(25:53):
with it. But for for everyone,everyone who's listening to this
podcast, if you could give theman empowered speech of why they
should care. Why, why should thelisteners care about horseshoe
crabs?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (26:06):
For the people in Canada, I have to
say there's a value, because allof this craziness led to a
listing of the red not the rednot went from, you know, in
Delaware Bay went from 95,000birds each spring. Last year,
it's now down to 6800. This is aCanadian species. Yes, there's
(26:30):
two sub species, one's breedingin the western part of the
Arctic in Alaska. And then thesegment that we're working on is
all of Nunavut, basically. Sothere's that, you know,
Canadians, I think, have aspecial or interest and Canadian
Fish and Wildlife Service andEnvironment Canada have taking
(26:54):
really leadership roles and inhelping defend the birds, to
some extent more so than USagencies, state agencies and US
state agencies forget abouttheir most of them are dominated
by marine fisheries interests. Ithink, you know, from a wider
perspective, it's aprecautionary tale, because if
(27:16):
we're ever going to deal withclimate change, we need electric
cars, we need to restrictmethane, you know, all that
stuff. That's certain. But thebest way to sequester carbon is
that functioning ecosystems andfully functioning ecosystems not
like, you know, yeah, you cansee Quester carbon in a form
(27:39):
field. But you're not going toget the same carbon benefits as
you work from a fullyfunctioning ecosystem. The third
thing is that we like seafood.
And, you know, if you want toeat seafood, and you need to
have a productive system, wedepend on these animals for Lal,
but who knows why, what wedepend on them in the future.
(28:02):
See, I think to some extent,like I was chief of the
Endangered Species Program forthe state of New Jersey, for,
you know, most of my career, theemphasis was always on
endangered species. It's funnybecause you can look at the arc
of my career, and you could say,you try to sell this, you try to
sell this, you try so that youend up with horseshoe crab or
(28:26):
some other counterpart. Toprotect endangered species, you
need to have functioningecosystems, and you can't just
protect a species, independentof all of the world that it
lives within. You know, theprecautionary tale here, I think
overall, is we need the systemswe need it for danger species,
(28:47):
we need it for, you know, ourown edification for our own
health. But it used to be theargument was take away a block,
you take away this block,eventually systems will fail.
I'm here to say the systems arehave already failed. Now we need
to start rebuilding them. Andthe way to do that is restore
all these other values. Like anexample of these other values is
(29:10):
here in Delaware Bay were whilethey were destroying the crabs,
they were arguing, we got to dothis, we need the jobs. And so
they basically destroyed therobust population. And then in
the process, we lost 1000s ofjobs because all the Marine is
now are closed because there'sno fish. But the restaurants
(29:31):
have closed overnight. moteltype things are closed the
income from dramatic levels oftourism, it's all gone. So the
make 10 jobs or whatever it was20 jobs. We've lost economic
support for our communities.
(29:51):
Like that's the price that wepay for allowing industry to
just come in and take and thenleave
David Evans (29:59):
it Yep, that's that's a very, very compelling
case, to care about horseshoecrabs. So I guess what are what
are some of the ways that we'vetalked about horseshoe crabs
their value? What's beingcurrently done with them? So I
guess, what are some of thestrategies that are being
(30:20):
employed by the horseshoe crabrecovery coalition, or the
groups that are interested inthe recovery of this, of this,
this population to previouslevels to support these
ecosystems? So what is it morelooking at? At policy levels
that being at being an advocateat a government events? Or? Or
(30:41):
is it talking to industryspecifically, actually
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (30:43):
sort of all of it so the coalition
has several working teams. Theone group though is persisted is
the LAL RFC group. So that'spopulated by the companies by
conservation groups by thegroup's like positions, like a
wide variety of people havedifferent interests, and arrow
(31:07):
working together? To figure outwhat the next action should be
just a series of actions likeletters to the US farm and
compare the one group physiciansat a round table with industry
reps. So that's one part of itis doing everything we can to
get RFC adopted, because weconsider that a basic management
(31:31):
goal. The second is that we havesort of several groups working
on policy issues. If you take ahorseshoe crab, or you causing a
take of an endangered species,red knots, like that's a big
question, right? The agencieshaven't really made that
declaration, but we think it'sthe case. If you have 10 Crabs,
(31:53):
you might have a nest in thesand that never go to the
surface. But if you have 100Crabs, then you'll have eggs on
the surface. In other words,every crab counts. So a take of
a crab should be a take of thespecies. So that sort of basic
policy issue is behind a lot ofour other actions, like we're
(32:13):
reaching out to the AtlanticStates Marine Fisheries
Commission, we're reaching outto individual states, the
regulatory systems within eachstate. And to do that, we've
also created state level workinggroups. So these are groups of
people who belong to thecoalition, but their actions are
(32:35):
restricted to that particularstate. So right now we have I
think we have eight stateworking groups from Georgia to
Massachusetts. Like, forexample, the New York working
group helped introducelegislation last year that got
tabled for political reasons,but they're working on state
(32:57):
legislation. Right now, whatwe're starting up is where we
did a pilot last year, but we'regoing into full mode now is
working off the state workinggroups, develop teams of
volunteers, that will go out andcount crab and eggs, tag them,
(33:19):
and also carry out stewardship.
So if there's shorebirds there,then protect the shorebirds and
to start programs to flip crabsbecause the or rescue them from
impingement. So saving crabslives like we do that on
Delaware Bay, a group calledreturn a favor, but that idea we
would like to spread. So that'sthe sort of multi prong approach
(33:44):
of the coalition.
David Evans (33:48):
That's great. It's an organic thing that continues
to snowball out. That'swonderful to hear.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (33:53):
You know, I'm a lifelong biologist
as yourself, although you'rehalf my age of that. But I think
this is unique, you know, it's45 different groups. It's not
just conservation groups, it'swide range of groups. And we're
not competing. And see, I feellike that's one of the problems
(34:15):
in conservation right now, isthat I'm going to say this
starkly. I think that, you know,our agencies are being overly
influenced by the short termneeds of industry. And
conservation groups are left tofight for money competing
against each other because it'susually grants. I mean, you
(34:37):
know, this, yeah, you're goingfor grants. You go into
foundations, you're looking forrich donors. And it's hard for
conservation groups to worktogether vitally. I mean, they
all work together because we'reall in it for the same reason.
I'm not trying to disparagethat. It's just that there's
that competitive aspect thatfracture means the constituency
(35:02):
into smaller political voices.
And you know, so that you end upwith a foe, the short term use
of our natural resources, that'sheavily influencing government.
And then you have this fractiousgroup of concerned citizens that
probably numbers the majority ofour population, but can't
(35:24):
develop the voice to makechange. So I think the craft
coalition is, is sort ofbreaking the mold there or
pulling together people. We'reworking collaboratively. Right
now we have a proposal into theAtlantic flyway shorebird
initiative. And if we are ableto get money, we're going to
share it with the state workinggroups. It's not like our
(35:47):
groups, working groups, theseare built from whatever works
best in each state. So you know,we're trying to develop a new
perspective on conservation.
David Evans (36:01):
I'm thoroughly impressed and very excited and
yet passionate people fromdifferent walks of life all
working together, but being ableto actually come together as one
voice and, and that's reallyspecial in this field. So I
guess how could someone who'slistening to this podcast, maybe
they're up here in Canada? Howcould they lend a hand and how
(36:23):
could they help horseshoe crabsor help horseshoe crab
coalition?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horses (36:26):
Series?
No breeding I don't know thatthere's any breeding horseshoe
crabs in Canada are unsure.
David Evans (36:32):
Yeah, we'll have to do some research and they'll add
that to the notes and to hear
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe Cr (36:36):
I think they run out with me
what's possible that they're inthe Maritimes so that's one
thing is to start finding out ifthere is any,
David Evans (36:45):
oh, we do have horseshoe crabs in Canada,
except they are 100 million yearold fossils in Manitoba. So
currently know breedingpopulations.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (36:54):
You know, funding of course, we have
a new button on our website thatwill allow people to donate. I
have to tell you that you know,we do a trapping of shorebirds
every year. We've been doing itfor now 25 years and that team
is volunteer base and a lot ofour team is coming from Canada
(37:15):
from Toronto Mark pack from theRoyal Ontario Museum and, and
then also the people ofEnvironment Canada like Paul
Smith, they provide a lot too. Iguess I could say that the
opportunity to volunteer forCanadians it would have to be
like a vacation come down toDelaware Bay, spend a week and
(37:36):
volunteer we have a volunteercrab rescue. We have volunteer
stewardship for each of thebeaches protecting the red
knots, we have a sort of brandof volunteer ism for doing
surveys, of course you crabsdirected by a staff person, but
the people doing the tagging orthe counting are our volunteers.
(38:00):
The key thing is not a day, youknow, not a few days, enough
time so that if you're trained,right, you could play it out for
enough time that it's worth it.
And then there's money, youknow, you can always give money.
Yeah.
David Evans (38:17):
Exactly. That's, that's wonderful. It sounds like
a great vacation to be honest.
Weather is great.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe (38:23):
Here in Callaway, and it's one of the
I think it's the main reason whywe have Canadians because they
just need to get
David Evans (38:30):
snow. Exactly. So I guess my final question is what
led you to being involved inthis project and what led you
into this career path?
Dr. Larry Niles, Horseshoe Cr (38:40):
I you know, it's probably a
familiar story for you. I mean,when I was young, I was a hunter
and Fisher and my father, youknow, so I, I was one of those
people. I knew what he wanted todo. When I went to college, I
wanted to be a game warden. Andso then it just went on from
there. I got a master's degreeat Penn State, eventually a PhD.
(39:03):
But after I had my master'sdegree was all working. You
know, I worked for Georgia Fishand Wildlife, I worked for
Clemson ventually for New Jerseyfish and wildlife and now on my
own, and I'm 70 years old, so Ishouldn't be retired. But, you
know, this is what I love to do.
If I retired, this is what Iwould do. I actually did retire
but I kept going. The reason isbecause you know, like a lot of
(39:30):
people I love this work.
David Evans (39:34):
Oh, that's that's fantastic to hear. It's still
work, but when you love it, it'shard to let it go. Thank you so
much for speaking with me today.
I feel like I've learned so muchabout horseshoe crabs and it's
interesting to hear how maybesomething that gets overlooked
by a lot of people can just playsuch an important integral role
and then really can become a wayfor people to connect dots that
seemed very difficult to connectpreviously. So thank you so much
(39:57):
for speaking with To me when Ipost the show notes for this
episode, there'll be links tothe website for the horseshoe
crab coalition and for thesocial media as well them so
that listeners will be able tofind and connect with the
coalition as well.
Dr. Larry Niles, Horsesho (40:13):
Thank you, David, this was interesting
to talk to you and I appreciatethe opportunity to talk about
the coalition's.
David Evans (40:26):
Thanks for listening to today's episode all
about horseshoe crabs, medicaldevices, and what we're doing
about this syntheticalternative. Thanks so much to
Dr. Larry Niles. He is a greatguest. And I learned so much
from him just so excited to makemy way down to Delaware Bay and
see the crab spawn for myself.
For more information about thehorseshoe crab recovery
coalition. You can find out moreabout their work at H s crab
(40:48):
recovery.org. And I'll leave alink for his own website as well
where you can keep up to datewith what's going on in the crab
world and in the bird world. Andbasically, everything you need
to know about Delaware Bay, besure to check out the show
notes. As I'll leave links forall of these plus lots of other
information, just in case it'sjust whet your palate and you
(41:09):
can't wait to learn more. Besure to check out the show
notes. It'll all be there. I'mthe host and producer David
Evans. And I just like to thankthe rest of the team
specifically Paul Polman, LeeBurton, and the rest of the
aquatic biosphere board. Thanksfor all of your help. And to
learn more about the aquaticbiosphere project. And what
we're doing right here inAlberta telling the story of
(41:30):
water, you can check us out ataquatic biosphere.ca. And we
also have launched our new mediacompany, a b n aquatic biosphere
network, which you can find atthe public place dot online and
search for the aquatic biospherenetwork channel, where we will
actually be posting all of thevideo episodes that we're going
(41:50):
to be creating this year. Sotune in. They will be out for
the next little while, but veryexcited to start sharing video
content as well of ourinterviews. If you have any
questions or comments about theshow, we'd love to hear them.
Email us at conservation at aclock biosphere.org. Please
don't forget to like, share andsubscribe. Leave us a review. It
(42:11):
really helps us out. Thanks andit's been a splash
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