Delaware Bay Waterman's Ass'n v. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection

This appeal concerns a ban on the harvesting of horseshoe crabs imposed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on July 29, 1997. This ungainly creature is one of nature’s marvels.

Ugliness is nature’s great gift to the horseshoe crab. It looks like a cross between a lobster and a Sherman tank, with a steel helmet of a shell and enough barbs and spikes to deter most predators. Get past the armor and there’s little to eat; fishermen long viewed the crabs as a nuisance, barely worth the few pennies they’d fetch at the fertilizer plant.

This singular unattractiveness,…