New York, NY – The Commission’s Horseshoe Crab Management Board approved the harvest specifications for horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin. Under the Adaptive Resource Management (ARM) Framework, the Board set a harvest limit of 500,000 Delaware Bay male horseshoe crabs and zero female horseshoe crabs for the 2019 season. Based on the allocation mechanism established in Addendum VII, the following quotas were set for the States of New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland and the Commonwealth of Virginia, which harvest horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin:
| Delaware Bay Origin Horseshoe Crab Quota (no. of crabs) | Total Quota** | |
| State | Male Only | Male Only |
| Delaware | 162,136 | 162,136 |
| New Jersey | 162,136 | 162,136 |
| Maryland | 141,112 | 255,980 |
| Virginia* | 34,615 | 81,331 |
*Virginia harvest refers to harvest east of the COLREGS line only
** Total male harvest includes crabs which are not of Delaware Bay origin.
The Board chose a harvest package based on the Delaware Bay Ecosystem Technical Committee’s and ARM Subcommittee’s recommendation. The ARM Framework, established through Addendum VII, incorporates both shorebird and horseshoe crab abundance levels to set optimized harvest levels for horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay origin. The horseshoe crab abundance estimate was based on data from the Benthic Trawl Survey conducted by Virginia Polytechnic Institute (Virginia Tech). This survey, which is the primary data source for assessing Delaware Bay horseshoe crab abundance for the past two years, as well as the ongoing benchmark stock assessment, has not been funded consistently in recent years.
However, due to the efforts of three Senators and six Representatives – namely, Senators Chris Coons (D- DE), Tom Carper (D-DE), Cory Booker (D-NJ); and Representatives Frank Pallone (D-NJ), Frank LoBiondo (R- NJ), Lisa Blunt-Rochester (D-DE), Donald Norcross (D-NJ), Chris Smith (R-NJ), and Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) – and the support of NOAA Fisheries, funding for the survey was restored beginning in 2016. They have also requested that NOAA Fisheries incorporate the survey into the agency’s annual budget.
Work is well underway for the 2019 Benchmark Stock Assessment and Peer Review, which will be presented to the Board in May 2019. For more information, please contact Dr. Michael Schmidtke, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 703.842.0740 or mschmidtke@asmfc.org.