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Long Island Commercial Fishing Association

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Horseshoe crab. Stock photo
Gov. Hochul says regulation authority should stay with DEC

By Mallie Jane Kim 

New York’s horseshoe crabs remain available to use as bait, after Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) vetoed a bill that would have prohibited the practice. Long Island environmental groups that had advocated for increased protections were not happy with the move.

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY.) Photo Courtesy of www.governor.ny.gov

“I’m angry and disappointed,” said George Hoffman, cofounder of the Setauket Harbor Task Force, which monitors water quality in area harbors and was one of about 60 organizations that signed on to a September letter urging Hochul to sign the bill.

“It will be hard to build enthusiasm among the environmental community for this governor,” Hoffman said.

Hochul’s Dec. 13 veto argued the species is already regulated by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC), and said the bill could have “unintended consequences” on managing species like whelk and eel, which are harvested using horseshoe crabs as bait. 

“While this bill is well intentioned,” she wrote in a letter to the state assembly, “the management of marine species is better left to the experts at DEC.”

She also expressed concern the bill could be detrimental to the commercial fishing industry and the biomedical field, which uses horseshoe crab blood in the development of vaccines.

Members of the commercial fishing industry were grateful for the reprieve. 

“We’re thrilled that legislation didn’t take the place of science,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of Montauk-based Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.  

Brady questions the sufficiency of methodology and equipment used to count New York’s crab population for the ASMFC’s report, which rated the state’s stock of horseshoe crabs as “poor.” She laid out her concerns in a letter to Hochul earlier this month, arguing the species is already highly regulated and not overharvested. 

“Fishermen’s lives and livelihoods depend on this,” Brady said. “Fishermen deserve the best science available — we aren’t doing anything that’s even close to on par with what other states are doing.”

Brady added that fishermen do not want to see the species depleted, and they will work within the regulations they are given.

Before its veto, the bill drew attention from legendary conservationist Jane Goodall, who urged Hochul to sign the bill to protect the ancient species, calling on their “shared sense of responsibility for the natural world.”

For her part, Hochul said she is directing DEC to evaluate whether additional measures could help protect the species, and she pointed to the agency’s current efforts to address concerns about overharvesting, including harvest prohibitions during the May and June spawning season. The agency also limits the annual horseshoe crab harvest in New York waters to 150,000, which is half the quota allowed by the ASMFC.

Environmental groups are not taking her assurance as consolation. 

“Governor Hochul didn’t just drop the ball; she dropped the axe,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Farmingdale-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment, in a statement. “It’s unacceptable to allow the continued antiquated practice of chopping up horseshoe crabs so they can be used as bait by fishermen.”

Esposito said her organization will keep advocating for stronger regulations to ensure long-term protection of the species.

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Horseshoe crabs at Cedar Beach in Mount Sinai. Photo by John Turner
The bill has passed in Albany, but awaits governor’s signature

By Mallie Jane Kim

The future of a bill to enhance protections for horseshoe crabs in New York waters is unclear, but advocacy around the issue is heating up.

If signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul (D), the bill would prevent the taking of horseshoe crabs for commercial or biomedical purposes in New York. The bill was passed by the state Assembly and Senate June 7, and though it has not yet been called up by the governor for consideration and potential signature or veto, advocates for and against the bill have been working hard to make their voices heard.

“Our job is to make sure the governor is aware that the horseshoe crab is a beloved species, it’s in danger and she can help it,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Farmingdale-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment, which is spearheading efforts to encourage the governor to sign the bill.

Fifty-eight groups signed on to a September letter urging Hochul to adopt the bill, including Audubon, Sierra and Rotary clubs from around Long Island, as well as the Port Jefferson Harbor Commission, The Whaling Museum & Education Center of Cold Spring Harbor and the Setauket Harbor Task Force.

Thousands of citizen postcards supporting the bill are on the way to the governor over the next weeks, according to Esposito, who predicts the bill won’t get called up before December, a pattern she has noted for environmental bills over the last few years. 

“The tough bills are the ones they wait longer to call,” she said. “The issue now is to make sure the public raises their voice.”

Horseshoe crabs, which are relatives of arachnids like spiders and scorpions, are considered “living fossils” since they have been around for an estimated 450 million years, but they have faced a steady decline in recent decades due to harvesting and habitat loss, impacting bird species that feed on horseshoe crab eggs during migration, like red knots. Commercial fisherman rely on horseshoe crabs as bait for whelk, and its blue blood is prized for biomedical research and vaccine development — though there are not currently any permits for biomedical harvesting in New York.

Local fisheries oppose the bill

Opponents of the bill don’t believe a complete ban on harvesting horseshoe crabs is an appropriate way to protect the species, since it is already monitored and regulated by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission and New York State’s Department of Environmental Conservation.

“If they felt that the horseshoe crab stock was in danger, we would hear about it first,” said Bonnie Brady, executive director of Montauk-based Long Island Commercial Fishing Association. “To use a law to regulate a fishery, when they are already regulated by appropriate bodies that have the science to back it, is just not the way to allow fisheries to survive.”

Some individual members of the association have written to the governor advocating against the ban, according to Brady, who added that she believes the proposed regulations are based on feeling, not fact. 

“No one wants to see [horseshoe crabs] become depleted to the point where their continued vibrance is in danger,” Brady said, explaining that whelk fishing is a significant aspect of day fishermen’s seasonal catch. 

“It would be like suddenly someone says, ‘We’re going to take 20% of your paycheck going forward without any scientific basis for doing so and without any compensation,’” she said. “Would you be OK with that?”

The Long Island Farm Bureau, based in Calverton, is also advocating against the bill with state lawmakers on Long Island and the governor’s office in Albany, according to the bureau’s administrative director Rob Carpenter. 

He emphasized that the state DEC’s efforts to preserve the species since the population levels in New York were rated “poor” in 2019 — including voluntarily limiting the annual take of horseshoe crabs to 150,000 and requiring mesh bait bags to reduce the amount of crab that fisheries need to use in whelk traps — should be given a chance. 

“Before we go and ban everything, I think that needs an opportunity to really work,” he said.

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Public domain photo

Long Island’s fishing industry may have dodged a bullet this hurricane season, although the official season for the Atlantic Basin does not end until Nov. 30. Yet stormier seas may be brewing for the years ahead.

Local fishermen sounded an upbeat tune after a sequence of intense tropical cyclones did not make landfall. While precipitation disrupted some local events in recent weeks, fishing operations have gone along without interruption.

Eric Huner owns and operates Captain Fish Port Jefferson, a fishing charter boat based in Port Jefferson that transports tourists and locals for fishing charters.

“For me personally, it didn’t affect me at all,” he told TBR News Media. “I can’t say there’s any real loss, probably for any private fishing boat like myself.”

On the commercial fishing side, the experience was relatively similar, according to Bonnie Brady, executive director of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association.

“As far as those guys that were fishing, most guys were out fishing the next day” after Hurricane Lee brushed past the Northeast, she said. “There wasn’t really much of an impact, thank goodness.”

Difficult past, uncertain future

Those interviewed suggested the Long Island fishing industry had averted a major threat with these storms avoiding landfall.

Reflecting upon the commercial impacts of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Brady remembered it as “particularly vicious” for the shoreline, with consequences for the fishing industry as well.

However, Huner said that irregular winds and tidal patterns are increasingly commonplace, complicating matters for his business. With projections for more frequent and intense storms, Huner said his line of work is becoming less predictable, noting the increasing difficulties in deciding which days to fish and selecting departure times.

“This year was the first time I took notice of the weather patterns being very difficult to predict,” he said. There was “a lot of volatility in the wind patterns, difficult to find windows of opportunity to go out,” adding, “It was not a normal, stable summer.”

More broadly, Brady expressed reservations about the regional trend toward offshore wind, saying this infrastructure could disrupt the local fishing industry.

“Offshore wind is going to, from our perspective, industrialize the ocean beyond any kind of repair,” she said. “It’s a very frightening time for our ocean, and that’s why we’re fighting so hard against it.”

Optimistic outlook

Huner said that the fisheries remain well populated despite the climactic challenges, a positive indicator that conservation efforts are working.

He also stated that the nature of the trade requires frequent adaptation to changing conditions. “The local fisherman is a pretty experienced person on the water,” he said. “I’m constantly reviewing what the weather forecasts are, what the wind forecasts are — and that’s a big part of my job.”

He added, “It takes a little more work, and if this is going to be what we call our ‘new normal,’ then we’re just going to have to be really on top of it.”

Adding to these sentiments, Brady said local fishermen are used to adapting “to changes in the water every day.”

“Those who are good at this trade tend to be experiential learners,” she said. “Every day, the ocean can change. The tides change. The moon changes. So they learn to adapt based on living it.”

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