by Ethan Gilardi, Wildlife Biologist
With May just around the corner, biologists and volunteers alike are preparing for the arrival of migratory shorebirds on their annual stop over in New Jersey’s Delaware Bay.
Andrew S. Lewis of NJ Spotlight News recently spoke with CWF Wildlife Biologist and Shorebird Steward program organizer Larissa Smith to discuss the 2021 shorebird season. The article highlights the history of shorebird conservation in the Delaware Bay, modern challenges to conservation due to COVID-19, and how a recent grant to the Littoral Society will help bolster this year’s efforts.
Read an excerpt of the article below and continue reading on NJSpotlight.com.
The quiet, empty beaches of South Jersey’s Delaware Bay shoreline will soon begin to stir with the sound of thousands of migrating shorebirds, pausing their long journeys from the Southern Hemisphere to the Canadian Arctic to refuel on the eggs of horseshoe crabs that emerge to spawn here each spring.
Along with this natural wonder comes a dedicated group of volunteers, called Shorebird Stewards, who assist biologists from the state and nonprofit organizations in their annual count of the bay’s most vulnerable migratory shorebirds, including the dunlin, sanderling, semipalmated sandpiper, short-billed dowitcher, ruddy turnstone and the red knot, a federally listed threatened species.
“I’ve been organizing the Shorebird Stewards since 2003, and it has always been a fairly small volunteer project, about 10-15 people,” said Larissa Smith, a biologist with the Conserve Wildlife Foundation, one of the Steward program’s partners. “This year, I’ve had more than 40 people interested.”
In a year upended by social distancing and hardship, Smith said, many people were nevertheless able to reconnect with the outdoors. “They want to help make a difference,” she said.
Continue Reading on NJSpotlight.com.