For those who don't know, the blue liquid is their blood
Why are they draining it in this way? Poor things.
Here's a description of the bleeding process:
https://www.horseshoecrab.org/med/bestpractices.html
It's specifically non-fatal:
Bleeding horseshoe crabs to death is not an acceptable practice in the U.S.
The volume of blood taken is actually quite small, as most of the material in the collection jars is anticoagulant.
It may look uncomfortable to us humans, but keep in mind that horseshoe crabs are not human. What's normal for the spider is chaos for the fly. Granted, it would be kinda weird to be hoisted from your home by a giant ape and forced into a blood drive. It's done as gently as possible though.
Highest chance of survival/low stress
Edit: many do die still. I don’t want to say it’s safe, just safer
That's how blueberry is made Freeze some of this add some structure, let it set, then put it on trees
Obviously didn't read the meme. It's a blueberry milkshake. Everyone knows blood isn't that color.
Which proves they're all royalty.
King Crab 🦀
So this is basically like a blood farm from vampires? Shit, still surprises me what an evil species we really are.
I kinda agree with you but when you think about it it's not that bad. They are released afterwards and we can use that blood to save countless people, like you and me.
Dp you enjoy the widespread availability of injectable medicine? The blood is used to detect impurities in injectable medicine.
A pint? That's nearly an arm-full!
People who know know that the crabs survive and are released back into the wild after their "donation"
Noble sacrifices for the glory of mankind.
Most of them, yes.
So we only catch them, torture them as much as we want and then act like we do good because at some point we "release" them to torture them again in the future.
And they literally and actually save hundreds of thousands of human AND animal lives by giving blood, which If you've never done it (Why Not?) Does not hurt a bit.
Real talk I'm fine with hurting crabs for our own means. Straight up.
On god, no cap frfr str8 bussin.
Real talk I’m fine with hurting other living beings that aren’t me for my own means. Straight up.
They're chelicerates though, not crustaceans. But then again, apparently everything evolves into crabs anyway
apparently everything evolves into crabs anyway
*CRAB PEOPLE. CRAB PEOPLE. *
They all serve a purpose in their own way, this one specifically does a great job!
Same here
If horseshoe crabs were to become less economically important, is that a good thing for horseshoe crabs? They ain't exactly Pandas, so will little Sally and Bobby care if horseshoe crabs become endangered? They're already in a precarious situation...
If you are any part of nature and also economically important, you get barbarically exploited until you go extinct. If you are not, you will be bulldozed to make room for the former. Capitalism is the best system of morality humans have ever, and will ever, come up with, and I truly cherish the utopia it has brought upon civilization.
Trivia of the day, horseshoe crab blood is blue because it is copper based instead of iron based like our blood
They're actually being fed the blue milk from Star Wars 8
That was green milk. Blue milk is from Episode IV.
ah yes, The Final Generation
It’s a simple, nearly instantaneous test that goes by the name of the LAL, or Limulus amebocyte lysate, test (after the species name of the crab, Limulus polyphemus). The LAL test replaced the rather horrifying prospect of possibly contaminated substances being tested on “large colonies of rabbits.” Pharma companies didn’t like the rabbit process, either, because it was slow and expensive.
From https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/02/the-blood-harvest/284078/ (emphasis mine).
Once it is fast and cheap, expect to see these alien fluid harvesting plants everywhere.
This is the kind of shit you see right at the start of alien invasion type sci fi flicks.
Or in China on a Wednesday.
(I am being a little sarcastic, but traditional Chinese medicine can have some really shitty practices.)
They have copper blood.... Where is this... Asking for a friend
The crabs are released afterwards, it doesn't kill them. Not saying it's a perfectly ethical situation, but at least it's not kill em en masse.
Just like tmnt
Stop all animal testing and torture
This isn't specifically animal testing, rather it is a process to get life saving medicine. They are working hard to synthesize it luckily. This has been the subject of a few major podcasts but I can't remember which ones.
Radiolab has an awesome episode https://radiolab.org/podcast/baby-blue-blood-drive
First off, this isn't testing. We know exactly what we need Horseshoe Crab blood for, and it's incredibly important.
Second, it's probably not torture. The worst-case-scenario level of discomfort from bleeding them is fairly low, like a human giving blood. And that (incorrectly) presupposes them having as advanced pain-sensing as humans. The actual death rate is the bigger issue, but we are talking about saving lives and the medical community is trying really hard to change the status quo on this. Covered below.
Third, what you're seeing in that picture saves thousands of lives per year. How much human suffering, how many human deaths, are you willing to accept to achieve those goals? What if one of those humans that has to suffer or die was your kid? There's no plant-based alternative to this process at this time.
Let me clarify this. Using horseshoe crabs for this purpose is VERY EXPENSIVE. It's only done because we don't have an alternative yet, and the process is necessary for modern medicine. There is plenty of research going into either making this process less expensive (which probably involves a lower death rate for crabs) or finding an entirely different process to achieve the same goals. But none has been found (well, except that they used to use rabbits for this. I don't know the details)
I can understand the desire to spare... um...shellfish some..uh.. pain I guess. But NOT at the expense of human life and suffering. That's just silly.
they don't die tho
Just tortured their entire lives
Wondering when the land people will come to suck their blood again
It's catch and release, not life long milking. Granted, the survival rate isn't as high as I'd like (70-90% apparently), but I do also appreciate having safe injectable medicines. All things considered, with a species bias, I'd prefer dozens of humans live at the expense of a.... Not crab. Unfortunate though it may be. I can't also help but notice you've anthropomorphised them a bit. I'm certain these creatures respond to negative stimulus, but attributing fear and life long trauma seems to be giving their intelligence a bit of an unfounded boost.
Honestly, of all the messed up shit we do with animals draining blood from a bunch of crabs for medical purposes seems like one of the less egregious ones.
they catch, "milk" and release them, most of them recover from it. (weaker ones tend to die tho, with survival rate of around 80%)
A lot of them do end up dying from this, yes.
around 20% which is acceptable... i think?
