Catch and Release - by Lisa Jean Moore (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The unexpected and fascinating interspecies relationship between humans and horseshoe crabs.

Horseshoe crabs are considered both a prehistoric and indicator species. They have not changed in tens of millions of years and provide useful data to scientists who monitor the health of the environment. From the pharmaceutical industry to paleontologists to the fishing industry, the horseshoe crab has made vast, but largely unknown, contributions to human life and our shared ecosystem. Catch and Release examines how these intersections steer the trajectory of both species' lives, and futures.

Based on interviews with conservationists, field biologists, ecologists, and paleontologists over three years of fieldwork on urban beaches, noted ethnographer Lisa Jean Moore shows how humans literally harvest the life out of the horseshoe crabs. We use them as markers for understanding geologic time, collect them for agricultural fertilizer, and eat them as delicacies, capture them as bait, then rescue them for conservation, and categorize them as endangered.

The book details the biomedical bleeding of crabs; how they are caught, drained of 40% of their blood, and then released back into their habitat. The model of catch and release is essential. Horseshoe crabs cannot be bred in captivity and can only survive in their own ecosystems. Moore shows how horseshoe crabs are used as an exploitable resource, and are now considered a "vulnerable" species.

An investigation of how humans approach animals that are essential for their survival, Catch and Release questions whether humans should have divine, moral, or ethical claims to any living being in their path.

Review Quotes

"Catch and Release is an incisive indictment of modern humanity's arrogance and ignorance and at the same time a celebration of a species, the horseshoe crabs, who despite their intelligence and power have refused to do to us what we have done to them."--G.A. Bradshaw, Author of Carnivore Minds: Who These Fearsome Animals Really Are

"Moore's book encourages people to take more seriously the humble horseshoe crab, whose blood flows in all of us, whether we know it or do not... Her book serves as an example of culture lag--most people do not pay attention to horseshoe crabs, but Moore shows readers the myriad, problematic ways that humans are implicated in these animals' lives, who are also central to our lives. Readers will think deeply about issues that many may not have even known existed... Catch and Release could also be assigned in gender and sociology of science classes"--Qualitative Sociology

"This inspired account of our often surprising connections to crab worlds confirms Lisa Jean Moore's place as one of the most original and powerful sociologists writing today. Her beautifully illustrated book elegantly and poignantly interweaves rigorous observation with creative theoretical analysis, personal memoir, and political critique. A must-read about one of the most ancient creatures on our shores."--Sarah Franklin, Author of Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship