A few yards from the beach at the Delaware Bayshore town of Kitts Hummock, an interpretive sign describes the horseshoe crabs that have traditionally come ashore there to spawn in their thousands.
The board includes explanations of the ancient animal’s role in the Delaware Bay’s ecosystem, and asks readers to “flip” any upside-down crabs struck in the sand so that they can return to the ocean. But on a warm June afternoon, a heading saying “Horseshoe Crab Sanctuary” had been blacked out by a strip of duct tape.
The simple act of obscuring that key part of the signage highlighted a heated local debate over whether the town is legitimately part of a coastal sanctuary for horseshoe crabs, or whether a recent decision by a handful of residents to allow harvesting on or near their properties effectively ends protection there.
The dispute has pitted conservationists who thought they were living in a community where all residents supported a ban on harvesting horseshoe crabs against a few who have – starting only last year – allowed harvesters to walk through their properties to gather live crabs from the beach.
Conservationists say last year’s harvest removed most crabs from a stretch of beach bordering the homes of four residents who have permitted the hand-harvest on their land.
This year, far fewer crabs came ashore to spawn at Kitts Hummock, fueling suspicions among those who want protection that last year’s heavy harvest was to blame.
Residents favoring crab protection are motivated in part by a desire to protect shore birds – especially the imperiled red knot – which eat the eggs of horseshoe crabs during a brief stopover at the Delaware Bay during their migration each May.
For the second year in a row, just a fraction of the bay’s migrating red knots were seen in Delaware, according to an in-person count, while some 95 percent were seen in New Jersey.
Conservationists say a dwindling population of red knots is the result of a continued – though illegal – catch of female crabs in Delaware waters. Even though that harvest has been officially banned for more than 10 years, females are still reportedly gathered for bait by the commercial fishing industry simply because they can be sold for more than male crabs.
That means fewer eggs for shore birds to eat, according to Steve Cottrell, president of Delaware Audubon.
“Harvesters get at least double the price for females, so if nothing is stopping them from taking females, why wouldn't they?"President of Delaware Audubon Steve Cottrell says the state's Red Knot numbers are low because there are so few female horseshoe crabs spawning due to harvesters.
“Harvesters get at least double the price for females, so if nothing is stopping them from taking females, why wouldn't they?,” said Cottrell, who has been urging Delaware lawmakers to ban the crab harvest in state waters. “Red knot numbers are low in Delaware because there are so few female horseshoe crabs spawning here to make it worth stopping here.”
Bay-wide, about 13,000 red knots passed through on migration this year, down about 8,000 from last year, according to an in-person count by a New Jersey-based team led by Dr. Larry Niles, a wildlife biologist who has been monitoring the knots for more than a quarter-century. Less than 5 percent of this year’s total stopped at Delaware beaches, Niles reported. In 2023, only about 10 percent were seen in Delaware.
At Kitts Hummock, Cristal Creel arrived on June 10 to start this year’s hand-harvest of live male horseshoe crabs. The creatures are picked up by Creel and some members of her family, hauled along the beach in a duck-hunting sled, and then loaded into a pickup truck.
Creel is limited by state regulations to taking 3,000 crabs a day but after three days’ work last week, she estimated the total at only 2,500-3,000, supporting conservationists’ claims that the crab population at Kitts Hummock is much reduced this year.
The crabs are sold to a company that freezes them alive, and then sells them to conch fishermen for bait, she said. She declined to say how much she gets paid for catching them.
Her business complies with Delaware regulations that allow the horseshoe crab harvest on private land if the landowner approves it in writing, Creel said. The rules are enforced by police from the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, who check the permission letters and the area of beach where the crabs were taken, she said.
“DNREC came three times last year and checked us, and this year they came the first day we were here, and they checked our licenses and our permission slips,” she said on June 13, sitting in her truck waiting for an incoming tide to bring in crabs. ”DNREC does enforce extremely well, whether it’s in a boat watching us, or on the beach.”
Last year, conservationists accused the agency of failing to enforce rules that restrict the hand-harvest of crabs in Kitts Hummock and about a dozen other coastal communities. They have signed on to the sanctuary that was designated some 20 years ago by Ecological Research and Development Group, a Dover-based nonprofit dedicated to protecting horseshoe crabs worldwide.
The sanctuary is not recognized by DNREC, and its goals are not enforceable. But the ERDG’s executive director, Glenn Gauvry, urged residents to defend the crabs, and warned that any that allow harvesting on their land will encourage those seeking a statewide ban on the harvest for bait, as New Jersey did starting in 2008.
“ERDG does not advocate for an outright ban in Delaware for we believe in a balanced approach that considers both horseshoe crab user groups and community conservation aspiration,” Gauvry wrote in 2023. “However, there are groups within the state working on a ban and your position only feeds into their efforts.”
Before this year’s harvest season, the police contacted horseshoe crab license holders who were expected to obtain Kitts Hummock landowners’ permission to gather crabs from beaches in front of their properties, and got the names of the landowners, said Michael Globetti, a spokesman for the agency.
He urged the public to report any suspected illegal horseshoe crab harvesting to the agency as it happens.
“The best way to address illegal harvesting of crabs is to contact Delaware Natural Resource Police when they suspect a violation is occurring on private property."DNREC spokesman Michael Globetti wants the public to be proactive in reporting suspected illegal horseshoe crab harvesting.
“The best way to address illegal harvesting of crabs is to contact Delaware Natural Resource Police when they suspect a violation is occurring on private property,” he said. “Contacting DNRP and DNREC after the fact does not provide the department with sufficient time to respond to the landowner’s complaint.”
There was a record spawning of horseshoe crabs at Pickering Beach this season, Globetti said.
The harvest season runs from June 10 to July 31 or when this year’s statewide quota of 169,170 male crabs is fulfilled, if that happens sooner. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a federal regulator, has banned the female harvest in the bay since 2013 because of concerns about the survival of red knots, which were listed as threatened the following year by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Now, several groups of naturalists are waiting for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to say whether it will consider their request to list the American horseshoe crab as threatened or endangered.
In Kitts Hummock, some residents defend their decision to allow the harvest on their land by saying it provides income and employment to Creel and her family.
“The family comes, they work, the kids are working,” said Jose Caban, 67, who has given permission for the family to cross the beach-front property where he has lived full-time for six years. “They are making a living. They are very knowledgeable about the crabs and very respectful. They have never bothered me a day since I have been here. It’s a source of income for the people who are harvesting them. “
Caban said he gets no financial compensation for giving access to his land, and never signed up to the ERDG’s sanctuary, in which residents promise not to allow horseshoe crab harvesting on their land or its adjoining beach.
His neighbor, Cheryl Lord, said she gave permission for the harvest on her land starting last year after being approached by another resident, Dr. Michael Costello. Lord said she agreed to permit the harvest on her land because it provides employment for the local fishing community.
“I approved it because this community has been here for a very, very long time,” said Lord, 73, a retired schoolteacher. “There are watermen that live here. The backbone of the Delaware coastal waters has been the watermen; they’ve been here long before any of the rest of us showed up. It’s part of the history of Delaware. Number two, this is a young family making an honest living, following the rules, trying to support their family. “
Harvesting the male crabs by hand is more humane than trawling for them, an operation that can result in the death of other marine creatures including female horseshoe crabs, she said.
“If you don’t allow the watermen to take crabs off the beach, they harvest them by dredging the bottom of the bay, and when they bring their nets up, they have females, males, water turtles, all kinds of sea life, which dies. They don’t go through all that stuff and toss them out,” she said. “They are having more of an impact on the sea life of the Delaware Bay than if you let them walk along the beach, and get the males.”
Dr. Costello, who has also given permission for the harvesters to use his land, commended ERDG for educating the public about horseshoe crabs but he objected to the protesters, whether from Kitts Hummock or elsewhere, who he said harassed the harvesters last year.
He allowed the nonprofit to put up its interpretive sign on his property but has since covered up the words “Horseshoe Crab Sanctuary” with duct tape because he said it was an inaccurate description of the Kitts Hummock beach.
By early afternoon Thursday, the tape had been peeled back but was later stuck down again.
Dr. Costello said he didn’t know who peeled back the tape but if that persists, he will ask ERDG to remove its sign from his property.
“I do not go door-to-door asking people to allow harvesting or to change their minds about a sanctuary,” he said, “I do, when asked, state the law and the property-owner options of ‘yes or no’ of being a sanctuary.”
