. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. NATURALIST'S NOTEBOOK HUMANITY'S LUCKY HORSESHOE Humans also have acquired a dependence on this enduring organism, although one of a more economic nature. Modern commercial harvest of horseshoe crabs as bait supports a $2 million conch fishery and a $6 million American eel fishery. "In Delaware Bay alone, watermen derive 20 to 50 percent of their total fishing income from conch or eel harvests," write University of Delaware marine biologist Nancy Targett and former graduate student Kirsrin Ferrar
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. NATURALIST'S NOTEBOOK HUMANITY'S LUCKY HORSESHOE Humans also have acquired a dependence on this enduring organism, although one of a more economic nature. Modern commercial harvest of horseshoe crabs as bait supports a $2 million conch fishery and a $6 million American eel fishery. "In Delaware Bay alone, watermen derive 20 to 50 percent of their total fishing income from conch or eel harvests," write University of Delaware marine biologist Nancy Targett and former graduate student Kirsrin Ferrari. The horseshoe crab also is a valuable resource to biomedical companies because its blood contains a clotting agent, Limulus ameobocyte lysate (LAL), which reacts to bacteria. LAL can be produced by extracting the blood from live horseshoe crabs, and is used to detect microbial pathogens in human blood, injectable drugs, intravenous fluids and other medical devices and supplies. The extraction procedure generally does not harm the horseshoe crabs. HORSESHOE CRABS IN PERIL? They have survived through millions of years of global change, predation and even an asteroid blast. So why are so many horseshoe crab monitoring programs sprouting along the Atlantic? "Since horseshoe crabs are used for the production of LAL, there has been more interest in their abundance," explains Whitney Kurz, coastal training program coordinator for the N. C. National Estuarine Research Reserve, who organizes a census in North Carolina. Also, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) has enacted the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for the Horseshoe Crab. Fifteen Atlantic states, including North Carolina, must abide by the plan, which aims to "determine horseshoe crab population densities and spawning locations," says Kurz. One volunteer-driven census of breeding horseshoe crabs, conducted in the Delaware Bay area since 1990, was recently modified to meet ASMFC stan
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