ALBANY, N.Y.— Gov. Kathy Hochul has signed the Horseshoe Crab Protection Act, which will phase out commercial harvests of horseshoe crabs from New York waters over a three-year transition period.

“Horseshoe crabs have saved countless human lives, and now New Yorkers are returning the favor,” said Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “New York has taken bold action to save these ancient creatures and the many other species that depend on them.”

Nearly twice as old as dinosaurs, horseshoe crabs are brown, body-armored arthropods with 10 eyes and a long spiked tail. Each spring along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, horseshoe crabs lay their eggs in massive beach spawning events. They once blanketed beaches from Massachusetts to Louisiana, but overharvesting has devastated populations.

Horseshoe crab harvests by the biomedical industry have doubled in the past seven years. Horseshoe crabs are drained of their blood for drug safety testing even though synthetic alternatives are already available, approved and used widely in Europe and Asia.

Horseshoe crabs are also harvested for bait by the eel and whelk fisheries. Previously, New York allowed 150,000 horseshoe crabs a year to be harvested from state waters. Overharvesting has caused horseshoe crab populations to plummet by 70% in the past 25 years. The Center petitioned to protect horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act in 2024.

As horseshoe crabs have declined, so have other species, such as endangered sea turtles, fish and birds. The rufa red knot, a shorebird species that feeds on horseshoe crab eggs during its 19,000-mile migration from South America to the Arctic, was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2015. The listing decision cited horseshoe crab overharvesting as one of the contributing factors to the red knot’s decline.

In 2024 Gov. Hochul vetoed the legislation but she signed it this year. Center supporters sent more than 20,000 comments to Gov. Hochul’s office urging her to sign the Horseshoe Crab Protection Act.

The legislation requires a 25% reduction in harvests over the next three years, with a full prohibition beginning in 2029.

New York joins New Jersey and Connecticut as states that have banned horseshoe crab harvests, and other states are considering similar measures.

“Horseshoe crabs have survived mass extinctions and dramatic changes to our planet, but they are now struggling to survive the impacts of human activity,” said New York Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who championed the legislation. “Overharvesting for bait and biomedical use has pushed this ancient species into decline, with ripple effects being felt throughout coastal ecosystems. I thank Gov. Hochul for standing with advocates and the legislature to protect this critical species.”