Every Spring, thousands of Red Knots travel 9,000 miles from South America’s Tierra del Fuego to the Canadian Arctic for their breeding season. With such a long migration, this shorebird must make stops along the way to eat and rest. The Delaware Bay is the perfect pitstop, where the horseshoe crab eggs provide nourishment for the exhausted Red Knots and other migratory shorebirds.
But this essential food source is under threat. Unsustainable harvesting of horseshoe crabs in the Atlantic Coast led to the loss of two thirds of its population in the 1990’s, severely impacting the Red Knot and other species that eat its eggs.
Almost a decade after American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and partners successfully pushed for the Red Knot’s Threatened status by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, there is still much work ahead to recover the species. ABC is advocating for solutions to conserve both the horseshoe crab and the Red Knot, as part of the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition (HCRC), a partnership of more than 50 organizations.
Learn more: https://www.hscrabrecovery.org
American Bird Conservancy stands up for birds across the Americas. We halt bird extinctions, conserve vital habitats, eliminate key threats, and build the capacity of our partners.
American Bird Conservancy
