Arlington, VA – The Commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Board approved revisions to a guidance document on Best Management Practices (BMPs) for Handling Horseshoe Crabs for Biomedical Purposes. The document recommends broadly applicable industry standards that are expected to minimize mortality and injury of horseshoe crabs associated with the biomedical process. It also provides background on the horseshoe crab biomedical fishery, information on current regulations in the Interstate Fishery Management Plan (FMP) for Horseshoe Crab related to biomedical collections, and research recommendations that could further inform the BMPs and potentially further reduce mortality or injury of biomedical horseshoe crabs.
The revised document is the product of a Board-appointed work group that was tasked with reviewing and updating the BMPs for handling biomedical catch since over a decade has passed since the BMPs were originally developed. The work group included technical committee and advisory panel members with expertise in horseshoe crab biology, ecology, and biomedical processing.
It is the Board’s intention to keep this document up-to-date, with periodic updates in the future. The final document will be posted to the horseshoe crab webpage at https://asmfc.org/species/horseshoe-crab under quick links by the end of May.
For more information, please contact Caitlin Starks, Senior Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at cstarks@asmfc.org or 703.842.0740.