The headline left out something important from the article and posed a false dichotomy, a minority of harvested crabs are being used to develop medicines, and most of those are released and survive. The vast majority that are killed are being harvested for use as bait in commercial fishing. Seems like that's the obvious thing to cut back on to save the humans, the crabs, and the birds.
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
47 points (98.0% liked)
Science
13200 readers
31 users here now
Subscribe to see new publications and popular science coverage of current research on your homepage
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
So basically we're choosing to kill a bird because we can't rely on corporations to cut back?
Yep. Can’t cut into profits. What would our investors think?
Besides urging companies to stop this practice, stop eating fish.
Also, it looks more like climate change is what's fucking over the spawning of horseshoe crabs. Not blood harvesting. Eggs need a specific temperature to survive.
Obviously, that's the one that's off the table. The choice is strictly between developing medicine or saving a species.
And I think we all know the birds are the ones who will have to go.
- Capitalism
I'm sorry but, was the whole successfully cloning animals thing just a fever dream? Is there a reason we can't be doing that for something like this? (Disclaimer: am stupid, pls ELI5)
Cloning is not a magical tool with scifi vats etc it's taking dna and placing it in an embryo and puting it back in an animal womb, here breeding would be more on point. But I too am stupid, this is my take on it from what I know.
I, too, would like to know if we shared the same fever dream.
If I remember right, cloning is banned in most places. Or at least there was talk about banning cloning in the EU in the early 10's.
Horseshoe crabs not blue crabs
Horseshoe "blood" is blue, and it's not actually blood it's hemolymph. It is blue crab blood. Blue blood from a crab.
Blue blood from a horseshoe crab yes. Blue crabs are also a thing and horseshoe crabs are always referred to with the word horseshoe in front. So calling them just crabs with the word blue in front is a poor choice if one cares about communication.
horseshoe crabs are always referred to with the word horseshoe in front
They weren't in this case, so that "always" seems to be a stretch.
if one cares about communication.
It's made clear in the article. If one cares about communication they're reading past a headline.
I don't know why you want to fight about this
It's a Fortune 500 article. They aren't very good on things like this. They mean the blue blood from horseshoe crabs.
Better headline: East Coast States Fail to Protect Resource Vital to Medicine Production
Ideally we should find a replacement for that horseshoe crab blood or perhaps a way to raise them in captivity. Maybe someone could come up with something to give the crabs to offset the damage caused by taking the blood. The issue might not even be primarily due to the blood with everything else happening climate change wise.
There might be ways to improve things for the birds but animals with super specific niches just kinda run the risk of becoming extinct. I feel similar about Pandas and Koalas.
Already have
"A synthetic alternative was later invented and has since been approved in Europe as an equivalent to the ingredient that requires horseshoe crabs. But in the U.S., the blood harvest isn't shrinking. It's growing." - source
Better headline: East Coast States Fail to Protect Resource Vital to Medicine Production
Stop terrorizing animals for stupid overpopulated people.
The horseshoe crab is a bird? Lol wat? Anyway why isn't it possible to create the blood in a lab or breed the crab/bird?
There is already a synthetic version approved in EU. US just refuses to use it. NPR article about it
The horseshoe crab is a bird? Lol wat?
Did you read beyond the headline?
I did after responding. I just think the headline has tried to fit as much information as possible but is a bit confusing doing so
To be honest, I too headed straight for the comments without reading the article. But I didn't comment till I read it. It's also not technically a crab either, despite being called one.
Literacy: Not even once!
Personally I’m team human so…. Sorry bird