Horseshoe crabs are harvested in their hundreds of thousands annually for biomedical bleeding to produce Limulus Amebocyte Lysate (LAL). This practice raises serious welfare and conservation concerns.
The welfare status of horseshoe crabs during the bleeding process is uncertain but concerning. While the pain sensitivity of horseshoe crabs is debated, the documented sub-lethal effects — including impaired locomotion, reduced spawning, and increased mortality — indicate that bleeding causes significant physiological harm. The scale of harvest means even modest mortality rates represent hundreds of thousands of animals dying from a process that has a proven synthetic alternative. The ecological ripple effects, including shorebird population impacts from reduced crab egg availability, extend the welfare harm beyond the crabs themselves. The availability of rFC makes continued reliance on wild harvest increasingly difficult to justify.