If you’ve ever gotten a vaccine, including the COVID vaccine, you have a very unlikely creature to thank: the horseshoe crab. For the last 40 years, the blue blood from the horseshoe crab(马蹄蟹), a creature which existed before there were dinosaurs and has survived all of Earth’s five mass extinctions, has been used to safely manufacture vaccines, medicines and vitamins. The blood is used to detect bacteria or toxins during the manufacturing process.

But the horseshoe crab population is declining in our area and around the world due in part to fishermen using them for bait, which is used to fish for conches and eel, according to Dr. John Tanacredi, who operates the only horseshoe crab breeding facility in the Western Hemisphere, which is located in West Sayville, on New York’s Long Island.

Tanacredi, who has been studying horseshoe crabs for years at the Center for Environmental Research, said New York State has one of the worst records in the country for the maintenance of its horseshoe crab population.

He said it’s in part because of the state’s harvesting rules, which allow fishermen to harvest horseshoe crabs for bait. In New York, someone can harvest up to five horseshoe crabs every day without a permit. With a commercial permit, fishermen can harvest 150 horseshoe crabs daily. Tanacredi said the horseshoe crab population from Brooklyn to the eastern tip of Long Island has been declining since at least 2003. “They should not be captured for bait anymore,” Tanacredi said. “They need to be protected.” 

Animal rights activists have called upon the pharmaceutical(制药的) industry to use synthetic blue blood, but the industry has been reluctant. They said authentic blue blood is the key to quality control testing for vaccines and medicines. Tanacredi said the other factor threatening the horseshoe crab population is destruction of their natural habitat from development by humans.

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1. What does the underlined word “synthetic” mean?（词义猜测）

A    Sympathetic.

B    Artificial.

C    Massive.

D    Reliable.