Conserve Wildlife Blog

Posts Tagged ‘red knot’

Mapping red knots in the Arctic

Friday, August 3rd, 2018

A new study investigates the habitat preferences of endangered Red Knots in their vast, remote Arctic breeding range. Credit: M. Peck for Phys.org

by The American Ornithological Society, via Phys.org

Rutgers University’s Richard Lathrop, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey’s Larry Niles, and their colleagues attached radio tags to 365 knots captured while migrating through Delaware Bay in 1999-2006. To learn where and in what sort of habitat the tagged birds nested, they then conducted surveys via small airplane across the south and central Canadian Arctic, a vast study area spanning from Victoria Island in the west to Baffin Island in the east.

The study shows that there are more than 74,000 square kilometers of suitable rufa Red Knot habitat across their Central Arctic breeding range—enough space for at least that many breeding pairs, assuming one square kilometer of territory per nest.

Click here to read more.

Birds in better condition than last year but still face an ecological roulette

Wednesday, July 11th, 2018

by Larry Niles (Part 3 of 3)

With the stopover period winding down, we can say the red knot and other shorebird species left the bay in better condition than the disastrous condition of last year. So what does it mean?

First, the last four years have been a sort of ecological roulette for the birds. Horseshoe crab numbers remained at only 1/3 the potential population possible on Delaware Bay leaving birds at the mercy of good conditions to get enough eggs. Last year, water temperatures stayed low during the mid-May depressing the spawn and the density of eggs. Although the average was 8000-eggs/square meter, there were less than 2000 eggs/ meters square in the month of May. (more…)

Red knot numbers down in wintering grounds

Monday, February 26th, 2018

The Press of Atlantic City covered the troubling findings of Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s recent expedition to Tierra del Fuego in Chile to survey wintering red knots.

The numbers of red knots – an endangered migratory shorebird that spends every May along New Jersey’s Delaware Bay coast feasting on horseshoe crab eggs – declined by more than 20 percent between the team’s counts last year and this year.

Click here for the full story.

onEarth Blog: Red knots in danger from all sides

Monday, July 3rd, 2017
This recent story highlights the threats facing red knots and the horseshoe crabs they depend on, as well as Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s role in protecting the species.
Read the article in full here: onEarth Species Watch

Photo by Hans Hillewaert

Newsworks: Why the Red Knot lives and dies by what happens in NJ

Wednesday, June 21st, 2017

NewsWorks ran a feature story on red knots and the incredible team of international volunteers who make Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s past two decades of scientific surveys possible.

Read the full story here.

Firing the net so that the shorebirds can be tagged and released. Photo by Bill Barlow.

 

Dick Veitch (left) and Dr. Larry Niles (right)