nivek
As Above So Below
This was disturbing to me to read, only because of our actions towards these creatures, would we do the same thing to other creatures we find on other planets if we make it out into space for true exploration, would it turn into exploitation?...
Here are some quotes from the very long article in the link:
The Blood of the Crab
Horseshoe Crab blood is an irreplaceable medical marvel, and biomedical companies are bleeding thousands of crabs and throwing them back in the ocean.
The cost of crab blood has been quoted as high as $15,000 per quart.
Their distinctive blue blood is used to detect dangerous Gram-negative bacteria such as E. coli in injectable drugs such as insulin, implantable medical devices such as knee replacements, and hospital instruments such as scalpels and IVs. Components of this crab blood have a unique and invaluable talent for finding infection, and that has driven up an insatiable demand. Every year the medical testing industry catches a half-million horseshoe crabs to sample their blood.
But that demand cannot climb forever. There's a growing concern among scientists that the biomedical industry's bleeding of these crabs may be endangering a creature that's been around since dinosaur days. There are currently no quotas on how many crabs one can bleed because biomedical laboratories drain only a third of the crab's blood, then put them back into the water, alive. But no one really knows what happens to the crabs once they're slipped back into the sea. Do they survive? Are they ever the same?
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To make enough of it for LAL testing, the biomedical industry now bleeds about 500,000 crabs a year. Global pharmaceutical markets are expected to grow as much as 8 percent over the next year. The medical devices market in the Americas is expected to grow about 25 percent by 2020. The demand for crabs will only grow.
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When a species is impacted on land, it's easy to see the effects. When the adverse effects occur under water, we don't really know about it—or don't really care. It's why we used to dump garbage and toxic chemicals into the water. What happens under water stays under water.
As such, scientists don't know exactly what biomedical testing does to horseshoe crabs. But they know enough to be worried.
-------------------------------
The number of crabs harvested by the U.S. biomedical industry jumped from an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 in the 1990s to more than 610,000 crabs in 2012, according to the ASMFC's latest stock assessment report.
"We were successful in exempting ourselves from quotas," said Thomas Novitsky, a scientist and former CEO of Associates of Cape Cod, an LAL company in East Falmouth, Mass. "We lobbied the ASMFC, telling them we're not hurting the crabs. We're putting them back. We have a very important medical application here, so give us a break and don't put the regulations on us."
The LAL labs argued that after the crabs are bled, they go back into the water and recover. That assumption is now being questioned. The ASMFC's decision not to restrict the biomedical industry assumed that some crabs, about 15 percent, would die. Now, that threshold has been broken in the last nine years. And evidence is accumulating that the death rate of bled horseshoe crabs is much higher (more like 29 percent versus 15 percent), that females may have an impaired ability to spawn, and that bled crabs become disoriented and debilitated for various lengths of time, Novitsky said. In Pleasant Bay on Cape Cod, where horseshoe crabs are known to be bled for biomedical use, he says fewer females are spawning than in other regions.
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It's hard enough on a creature to lose a large quantity of blood and then survive in the wild. But that's only part of the problem for the crab. According to scientists like Owings and Watson, there's a growing body of evidence that factors related to the capture and transportation are hurting the crabs, too.
"I imagine when you put them back in the water, if you were to measure their breathing rate, it would be intense," Watson said, noting that their time spent out of the water has probably made them anaerobic for a while. "If I was put through a period where I couldn't breathe, and you put me back where you found me, I'd just sit there and breathe for a day."
Watson says the companies catch so many crabs at one time that they can't keep them in tanks. There's just too many. And so the catchers just pile crabs out on the deck of the boat.
"Name me another marine creature who breathes under water who can survive on land the way they can," Watson says. "You can't do that with a fish, or a lobster. They're very hearty. But I think they pay a price for that."
.
Here are some quotes from the very long article in the link:
The Blood of the Crab
Horseshoe Crab blood is an irreplaceable medical marvel, and biomedical companies are bleeding thousands of crabs and throwing them back in the ocean.
The cost of crab blood has been quoted as high as $15,000 per quart.
Their distinctive blue blood is used to detect dangerous Gram-negative bacteria such as E. coli in injectable drugs such as insulin, implantable medical devices such as knee replacements, and hospital instruments such as scalpels and IVs. Components of this crab blood have a unique and invaluable talent for finding infection, and that has driven up an insatiable demand. Every year the medical testing industry catches a half-million horseshoe crabs to sample their blood.
But that demand cannot climb forever. There's a growing concern among scientists that the biomedical industry's bleeding of these crabs may be endangering a creature that's been around since dinosaur days. There are currently no quotas on how many crabs one can bleed because biomedical laboratories drain only a third of the crab's blood, then put them back into the water, alive. But no one really knows what happens to the crabs once they're slipped back into the sea. Do they survive? Are they ever the same?
----------------------------
To make enough of it for LAL testing, the biomedical industry now bleeds about 500,000 crabs a year. Global pharmaceutical markets are expected to grow as much as 8 percent over the next year. The medical devices market in the Americas is expected to grow about 25 percent by 2020. The demand for crabs will only grow.
-----------------------------
When a species is impacted on land, it's easy to see the effects. When the adverse effects occur under water, we don't really know about it—or don't really care. It's why we used to dump garbage and toxic chemicals into the water. What happens under water stays under water.
As such, scientists don't know exactly what biomedical testing does to horseshoe crabs. But they know enough to be worried.
-------------------------------
The number of crabs harvested by the U.S. biomedical industry jumped from an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 in the 1990s to more than 610,000 crabs in 2012, according to the ASMFC's latest stock assessment report.
"We were successful in exempting ourselves from quotas," said Thomas Novitsky, a scientist and former CEO of Associates of Cape Cod, an LAL company in East Falmouth, Mass. "We lobbied the ASMFC, telling them we're not hurting the crabs. We're putting them back. We have a very important medical application here, so give us a break and don't put the regulations on us."
The LAL labs argued that after the crabs are bled, they go back into the water and recover. That assumption is now being questioned. The ASMFC's decision not to restrict the biomedical industry assumed that some crabs, about 15 percent, would die. Now, that threshold has been broken in the last nine years. And evidence is accumulating that the death rate of bled horseshoe crabs is much higher (more like 29 percent versus 15 percent), that females may have an impaired ability to spawn, and that bled crabs become disoriented and debilitated for various lengths of time, Novitsky said. In Pleasant Bay on Cape Cod, where horseshoe crabs are known to be bled for biomedical use, he says fewer females are spawning than in other regions.
----------------------------------------
It's hard enough on a creature to lose a large quantity of blood and then survive in the wild. But that's only part of the problem for the crab. According to scientists like Owings and Watson, there's a growing body of evidence that factors related to the capture and transportation are hurting the crabs, too.
"I imagine when you put them back in the water, if you were to measure their breathing rate, it would be intense," Watson said, noting that their time spent out of the water has probably made them anaerobic for a while. "If I was put through a period where I couldn't breathe, and you put me back where you found me, I'd just sit there and breathe for a day."
Watson says the companies catch so many crabs at one time that they can't keep them in tanks. There's just too many. And so the catchers just pile crabs out on the deck of the boat.
"Name me another marine creature who breathes under water who can survive on land the way they can," Watson says. "You can't do that with a fish, or a lobster. They're very hearty. But I think they pay a price for that."
.