“What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.” — Molly Beattie, former director, US Fish & Wildlife Service, defender of the Endangered Species Act
Back when former President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act in 1973, there was reason to believe this country’s conscience was coalescing behind support of the natural world.
But of course, we now live in different times.
In the coming week, the public will have its last chance to weigh in on changes to federal law that would gut the Endangered Species Act, while up in Albany, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has just until this Friday to decide whether our state will join Connecticut and New Jersey in protecting an ancient species that once was a common sight in our local waters — the American Horseshoe Crabs.
Bending to pressure from fishermen, Ms. Hochul had vetoed a bill last year to ban the harvesting of horseshoe crabs for bait and biomedical purposes, despite active advocacy from Long Island environmental groups, a plea from renowned naturalist Jane Goodall, and a groundswell of public support and letter-writing campaigns.
The American horseshoe crab is currently classified as “vulnerable” under the Endangered Species Act, but in 2024 the Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the federal government to list it as an endangered or threatened species, noting in its petition that “multiple studies have indicated a significant decline of the American horseshoe crab in Connecticut and New York.”
But a lot has changed in Washington since that petition was made, and proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act announced this fall will give far heavier weight to the economic impact of listing species as endangered in the future.
Comments on the changes are being accepted here through Dec. 21.
This sea change at the federal level makes it far more imperative that New York State show leadership in protection of a species that has existed for hundreds of millions of years, and which thrived in local waters since before humans existed, before its most recent use as a commodity.
While fishermen use horseshoe crab meat as bait for conch and eel, those species do not eat horseshoe crabs in the wild. And advances in production of synthetic compounds found in horseshoe crab blood have given medical companies another source to use for their work.
Letting the market dictate how to protect the environment has rarely worked out well for the environment.
Now is the time to show that our state will stand up for species that can’t stand up for themselves, and Ms. Hochul’s signature this year will not only send a message to New Yorkers about our state’s values, but it will send a clear message to Washington as well.
Last week at the Southampton Playhouse, the Hamptons Doc Fest closed its annual festival with a screening of the IMAX film “The Lost Wolves of Yellowstone,” about the first few packs of gray wolves brought back to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, spurred on by the first female director of the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Molly Beattie.
The decision to bring an apex predator back to its historical habitat in the park didn’t sit well with ranchers in surrounding communities, and the bargain was a tough one — if the wolves left the park and began attacking livestock, the ranchers were allowed to kill them.
But the wolves proved the proverbial butterfly effect. They instinctively culled the weak from abundant wild herds of elk and bison in the park, and the landscape that had been stripped by overgrazing elk began to change for the better. Stands of aspen along the riverbanks began to recover, their roots strengthening the shorelines and their canopies providing shade for a cascade of other beneficial species.
Molly Beattie’s work was cut short by an aggressive brain cancer, but the first wolf pack reintroduced to Yellowstone, Molly’s Pack, is still going strong, accounting for about 8 percent of the genetic makeup of wolves in the park today.
Her work is proof that the leadership of one strong woman can go a very long way, but it’s increasingly unlikely that we’ll see that kind of environmental leadership in Washington.
Governor Hochul has a chance this week to show up not just for horseshoe crabs, but for all vulnerable and threatened wildlife throughout this country.
While we often hear her talk about her support for economic development — including for renewable energy — we less often hear her stand up for conservation — something most New Yorkers care very strongly about.
We hope that, when it comes to horseshoe crabs, Ms. Hochul puts our fragile environment first. In the long run, we will all win.
