Crab Wars : A Tale of Horseshoe Crabs, Ecology, and Human Health.

161 Pages·2021·1.275 MB·English

by  William Sargent

Crab Wars

CR AB WARS
A Tale of
Horseshoe Crabs,
Ecology, and
Human Health
Second Edition
r
WILLIAM SARGENT
Brandeis University Press
waltham, massachusetts
brandeis university press
© 2002 and 2021 Francis W. Sargent
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Katherine B. Kimball
Typeset in Galliard
First Brandeis University Press edition 2021
Previously published by University Press of
New England in 2002
isbn for the Brandeis edition: 978-1-68458-076-7
isbn for the Brandeis ebook: 978-1-68458-077-4
For permission to reproduce any of the material in this book,
contact Brandeis University Press, 415 South Street, Waltham
MA 02453, or visit brandeisuniversitypress.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
appear at the back of the book
5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface to the Second Edition ix
Preface to the First Edition xi
Acknowledgments xiii
Part I: Early Lessons
Introduction 3
chapter 1: A Day in the Life of a Hunter-Gatherer 5
chapter 2: Carl Shuster 12
[July 14, 1953]
chapter 3: First Lessons 19
[Boston Children’s Hospital, 1956]
chapter 4: At an Ancient Orgy 25
[June 21, 1957]
Part II: Commercialization
chapter 5: The Conversation 33
[Woods Hole, 1962]
chapter 6: Bleeding the Crab 37
[1969–1974]
chapter 7: Crabs and Ponies 44
[Chincoteague Island, June 22, 1972]
chapter 8: “Flugate” 48
[1976]
chapter 9: Confessions of a Horseshoe Crab Farmer 53
[Cape Cod, 1982]
vi Contents
chapter 10: A Garden Party 59
[Charleston, South Carolina, 1985]
Part III: Environmental ConXicts
chapter 11: Fishing for Bait: The Conch and Eel Fisheries 67
[Delaware Bay, 1990–2000]
chapter 12: A Day at the Beach:
Red Knots and Horseshoe Crabs 73
[Reed’s Beach, New Jersey, May 29, 1985]
chapter 13: The Atlantic States
Marine Fisheries Commission 77
[Washington, D.C., 1996–1999]
chapter 14: Jay Harrington vs. Bruce Babbitt 86
[Pleasant Bay, 2000]
chapter 15: A Bizarre Incident 92
[May 23, 2000]
chapter 16: The Decision 98
[John Joseph Moakley Federal Court House, Boston, Massachusetts, May 22, 2001]
chapter 17: The Loophole 103
[Falmouth, Massachusetts, June 2001]
chapter 18: Raw Lysate: A New Industry 108
[Chincoteague, Virginia, July 30, 2001]
chapter 19: Numbers, Numbers, Numbers 114
[Delaware Bay, September 28, 2001]
Part IV: Crabs and COVID
chapter 20: Dr. Ling Jaek Ding 121
[Singapore, 2013]
Contents vii
chapter 21: Three Surprises 125
[May 29, 2020]
chapter 22: The New Kid on the Block:
Pease Industrial Park 131
[Portsmouth, New Hampshire, July 2020]
chapter 23: On Pins and Needles:
Operation Warp Speed 134
[August 15, 2020]
chapter 24: Three Asian Crabs 137
[August 2020]
epilogue: Afterthoughts 141
[September 9, 2020]
Index  143

Preface to the Second Edition
In the preface to the first edition of this book I asked myself why
was I writing about horseshoe crabs when three thousand people
had just died in the rubble of the World Trade Center. I discovered
that John Steinbeck had asked the same question when he was
writing about fish dying in tidepools while Europe was being
bombed during World War II. He decided that none of it was very
important or all of it was, and I felt the same way.
Today I find myself finishing the second edition of this book
in the midst of the worst pandemic in a hundred years, during
the most momentous election in my lifetime, and on the day that
Denmark decided to euthanize 17 million mink to prevent a new
pandemic, for which we might not be able to make vaccines.
Denmark’s decision suggests that COVID-19 was not the result
of natural selection, but was rather the result of what is called gain-
of-function research in ferrets. After all, minks are just larger first
cousins of ferrets, with nicer fur coats.
Be that as it may, I could be asking myself the same question.
Why am I still writing about horseshoe crabs when over a million
people have just died from COVID-19, with almost a quarter of
them in the United States alone?
But things have radically changed since 2001. Then I was about
the only nontechnical person writing about horseshoe crabs and
the public was unaware how important they were becoming to
modern medicine.
Today the medical uses of horseshoe crabs are almost common
knowledge. Since 2018, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and
the National Geographic magazine have all carried major stories
about horseshoe crabs in modern medicine, and more recently
journalists have written stories about how crucial horseshoe
crabs will be in ensuring that both the antibody tests and COVID