Informant38

The main western Atlantic population of red knots plunged
by nearly 50 percent in the past year

to
photo: Arthur Morris
This shorebird travels from its wintering grounds on the southern tip of Patagonia in Tierra del Fuego, Chile, to its breeding destination in the high Arctic of Canada. After laying eggs and rearing young, red knots head south to complete an annual round trip estimated at 20,000 miles. The success of their journey depends critically on one food resource: horseshoe crab eggs in the Delaware Bay.

WCS
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They come to feed on the eggs of horseshoe crabs that spawn on the beaches at the same time of year, a reliance that goes back millions of years. It is one of nature's great migration spectacles. The birds need the crab eggs to sustain them through the remaining leg of their long migration north, some 4,000 miles. But because of overharvesting of the crabs for use as bait in conch and eel pots, there are insufficient eggs and the birds are suffering. Research to develop artificial bait will likely soon yield results, but in the meantime the harvest continues.

American Bird Conservancy
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red knots at Defenders of Wildlife