• Neuron
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    1 year ago

    The headline left out something important from the article and posed a false dichotomy, a minority of harvested crabs are being used to develop medicines, and most of those are released and survive. The vast majority that are killed are being harvested for use as bait in commercial fishing. Seems like that’s the obvious thing to cut back on to save the humans, the crabs, and the birds.

    • AnonTwo@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      So basically we’re choosing to kill a bird because we can’t rely on corporations to cut back?

    • penguin@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Obviously, that’s the one that’s off the table. The choice is strictly between developing medicine or saving a species.

      And I think we all know the birds are the ones who will have to go.

      - Capitalism

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Also, it looks more like climate change is what’s fucking over the spawning of horseshoe crabs. Not blood harvesting. Eggs need a specific temperature to survive.

  • literallyacat@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’m sorry but, was the whole successfully cloning animals thing just a fever dream? Is there a reason we can’t be doing that for something like this? (Disclaimer: am stupid, pls ELI5)

      • ekky43@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        If I remember right, cloning is banned in most places. Or at least there was talk about banning cloning in the EU in the early 10’s.

    • Dreyns@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Cloning is not a magical tool with scifi vats etc it’s taking dna and placing it in an embryo and puting it back in an animal womb, here breeding would be more on point. But I too am stupid, this is my take on it from what I know.

    • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Horseshoe “blood” is blue, and it’s not actually blood it’s hemolymph. It is blue crab blood. Blue blood from a crab.

      • MadgePickles@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        Blue blood from a horseshoe crab yes. Blue crabs are also a thing and horseshoe crabs are always referred to with the word horseshoe in front. So calling them just crabs with the word blue in front is a poor choice if one cares about communication.

        • 133arc585@lemmy.ml
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          1 year ago

          horseshoe crabs are always referred to with the word horseshoe in front

          They weren’t in this case, so that “always” seems to be a stretch.

          if one cares about communication.

          It’s made clear in the article. If one cares about communication they’re reading past a headline.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      It’s a Fortune 500 article. They aren’t very good on things like this. They mean the blue blood from horseshoe crabs.

  • borkcorkedforks@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Ideally we should find a replacement for that horseshoe crab blood or perhaps a way to raise them in captivity. Maybe someone could come up with something to give the crabs to offset the damage caused by taking the blood. The issue might not even be primarily due to the blood with everything else happening climate change wise.

    There might be ways to improve things for the birds but animals with super specific niches just kinda run the risk of becoming extinct. I feel similar about Pandas and Koalas.

    • AttackBunny@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Already have

      “A synthetic alternative was later invented and has since been approved in Europe as an equivalent to the ingredient that requires horseshoe crabs. But in the U.S., the blood harvest isn’t shrinking. It’s growing.” - source

  • Papercrane@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    The horseshoe crab is a bird? Lol wat? Anyway why isn’t it possible to create the blood in a lab or breed the crab/bird?