That raises concern for the crabs' preservation and, scientists say, for the survival of the one million shorebirds that rely on excess crab eggs as food for the final leg of their migration from South America to the Arctic Circle.

The riso venere (creamy black rice) with crab, salmon eggs and peas pleases all the senses, and pasta dishes, such as a squid ink ravioli, are far from timid.

Flocks of sanderlings, red knots, ruddy turnstones and other migratory shore birds descend from night skies to gorge on the crab eggs before continuing their trip from as far south as Tierra del Fuego to nesting grounds in the Arctic.

If there are not enough crab eggs, scientists believe, the red knots cannot fatten up in time to make it up north so their chicks can enjoy the bugs available during the brief Arctic summer.

The crab eggs provide an abundant food supply which these long-distance flyers use to replenish their energy reserves before moving on.

In opposition, Delaware environmental secretary John Hughes concluded that a decline in the red knot bird population was so significant that extreme measures were needed to ensure a supply of crab eggs when the birds arrived.

"While we're confident that our moratorium won't be overturned on a technicality, the fewer the horseshoe crab eggs available for the birds, the less chance they have for survival."

Those two phenomena, he says, are the hundreds of thousands of hawks channeled on their flight path over Cape May each fall and the shorebirds gorging themselves on the crab eggs on the Delaware Bay beaches in the spring.

Fewer crabs has in turn meant fewer crab eggs for the million migrating shore birds that stop along the bay every spring to refuel.

Two weeks later, when the moon once again exerts its strongest gravitational pull, the crab eggs hatch and the next high tide flows in - right on schedule - to sweep the newborns out to sea.