Tag: Shorebird

by Emmy Casper, Wildlife Biologist

Wildlife telemetry is a growing technological tool that uses tracking devices to help answer questions about animal movement patterns. For highly mobile and migratory species like shorebirds, telemetry is especially useful because it offers an opportunity to model migration routes, identify important staging or foraging sites, and learn about bird behavior. Since beginning a comprehensive American oystercatcher monitoring and banding program on the Delaware Bay in 2022, CWF and our partners have set out to learn as much as we can how oystercatchers move around the Bayshore and beyond so that we can apply this knowledge to management decisions. By banding oystercatcher adults and chicks over the last two seasons, we have been able to gain a basic understanding of oystercatcher movements around the Bayshore as well as some of their staging and wintering locations. However, there is only so much we can learn through band resights alone. For that reason, we were very excited to partner with The Wetlands Institute (TWI), Cape May Point Science Center (CMPSC), and Cellular Tracking Technologies (CTT) this past season to pioneer telemetry research for oystercatchers on the Bay.

Step 1: Choosing a Telemetry Method

Generally, wildlife telemetry can be divided into two camps: radio and GPS. Radio-tags work by emitting radio frequencies that are detected by radio towers or hand-held receiver devices when the tagged animal is within the detection range. Each transmitter emits a unique signal which allows the biologists to identify individuals. One big limitation of radio telemetry is that tags will only ping when in range of a radio tower (e.g., Motus towers) or handheld receiver, which means it relies on a widespread network of radio towers and/or biologists collecting data in the field. GPS telemetry, on the other hand, works by using satellite signals to pinpoint an individual’s exact location in real-time, similar to the way your cell phone locates your location on a navigation app. The units can store location data and then transfer information wirelessly through cellular networks right to an online portal on a phone or computer. Since this type of tracking does not require local radio towers, it can collect location data anywhere and at any time, which allows biologists to track both fine-scale and large-scale movement patterns. However, GPS transmitters are typically much heavier and more expensive than their radio-tag counterparts, which means this type of telemetry is limited by focal species and budget. While both methods have their advantages, we consulted with CTT to choose GPS units for our oystercatchers, and CMPSC generously provided the funding to purchase five transmitters for the Delaware Bay Oystercatcher project.

Step 2: Deploying the Transmitters

Once we chose the transmitter type, we had to design an attachment method. To our knowledge this is the first time GPS units have been deployed on oystercatchers in New Jersey, so we relied on the expertise of our colleagues working with oystercatchers in other states as well as CTT’s experts. In the end, we decided to use a “leg-loop harness” design based on recommendations from the American Oystercatcher Working Group. This method involves equipping the bird with a custom harness that fits close to its body, around its legs. The transmitter unit rests on the bird’s back so that the solar panels that power the battery are exposed to the sun. Fitting the harness is very precise work, and extra care is taken to make sure the harness is balanced and appropriately snug. Once deployed, the harness remains attached to the bird for the remainder of its life, although every effort is made to recapture the birds and remove transmitters that no longer function.

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Oystercatchers are relatively large shorebirds, but we were not prepared for how challenging it was to find heavy birds on the Delaware Bay!

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As you may expect, transmitter weight is a limiting factor when it comes to deploying units on lightweight animals like birds. The last thing we want to do is negatively impact the bird’s health and ability to fly. To prevent negative impacts to the birds, the combined weight of the harness and transmitter must not exceed 3% of the oystercatcher’s body weight. Since our set-ups were on the heavier side, averaging around 12-13 grams, we had to find oystercatchers heavy enough to carry them. Oystercatchers are relatively large shorebirds, but we were not prepared for how challenging it was to find heavy birds on the Delaware Bay! We captured around ten adults during the 2024 season, but only two birds met the mass criteria and were able to safely carry tracking units.

Step 3: Tracking the Birds!

Given our challenges with deployment this season, we were very happy to successfully tag and track two birds, an adult female named Snowflower and an adult male named Roy Royster. Each bird has their own unique story representing different aspects of “oystercatcher life” during the nesting season and beyond. Although we are still in the early stages of collecting and analyzing transmitter data, we are excited to share some snapshots of their movements and behavior so far.

Snowflower:

Snowflower was tagged on May 7, 2024 at South Goshen Beach, while tending an active nest with her mate King Nummy. Unfortunately, the pair lost their nest to fox predation nine days later on May 16th, but we were still able to collect some interesting movement data before and after the nest was lost. While incubating the active nest, Snowflower stayed close to her nest territory, with occasional foraging trips to the oyster beds/living shorelines at Bay Cove Beach (Map 1). Following her nest loss, Snowflower’s range expanded significantly to encompass much more of the Bayshore, spanning from Del Haven all the way up to Egg Island – a distance of 15 to 23 miles depending on possible flight routes (Map 2)!  We were also interested to observe that she continued to make foraging trips to living shorelines/oyster beds at Bay Cove and Rutger’s Cape Shore Laboratory. Up until very recently, Snowflower has remained on the Cape May Peninsula, especially around Atlantic Coast sites such as Stone Harbor Point, a known oystercatcher staging and wintering roost location (Map 3). However, she recently surprised us by taking a brief “vacation” all the way down to the Eastern Shore of Virginia from October 10-12, only to return to New Jersey on the 13th (Map 3)! It remains to be seen whether she will stay in New Jersey year-round or head to a more southern winter location.

 

 

 

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Roy Royster:

Compared to Snowflower’s transmitter deployment, Roy Royster’s story is filled with lots of ups and downs. After trying and failing to find oystercatchers heavy enough to carry transmitters, we were so ecstatic to finally deploy our second transmitter on Roy on June 28th near Dyers Cove in Cumberland County. This was especially exciting for the team because Roy had successfully hatched a nest and was in the process of brooding his chick (Rudy Royster) with mate Rhonda. Oystercatcher chicks depend on food provisions from their parents until they are at least 60 days old when their beaks become strong enough to pry open bivalves, their primary food source. Large feeding areas close to nesting locations have been linked to increased fledgling success (Nol 1989), presumably because adults foraging closer to their offspring can devote more time and energy to chick care and protection. Since only three nests managed to hatch during the 2024 season, we felt very lucky to be able to collect GPS data on a brooding pair to help test that hypothesis.

Unfortunately, Roy’s transmitter went silent almost immediately after deployment and didn’t transmit a single location after June 28th. We knew Roy was still alive and well based on field observations, but we couldn’t figure out why his transmitter wouldn’t work. After we had just about given up on receiving any data we were shocked when Roy’s transmitter finally checked in on September 11th, all the way from the Eastern Shore of Virginia! The transmitter also dumped hundreds of GPS locations stored before Roy left New Jersey, so we were able to map out some of his foraging patterns while brooding Rudy and after Rudy had fledged. While we don’t have fine-scale timing intervals, it seems like Roy stayed close to his brooding territory at South Dyers Cove (Map 4), potentially indicating the presence of abundant and high quality foraging resources. After Rudy fledged and was able to fly, Roy expanded his range, making trips to Money Island and Egg Island (Map 5). Roy’s migration data does have some gaps, so we can’t determine the exact route and timing of his migration south, but he continues to check in from Virginia (Map 6), coincidentally just a few miles from this year’s American Oystercatcher Working Group Meeting in Wachapreague. Sounds like the perfect opportunity for a field trip this December!

 

 

Next Steps

We look forward to continued tracking and monitoring of Roy Royster and Snowflower throughout the winter and the next nesting season, but Roy and Snowflower represent just the beginning of our telemetry efforts on the Delaware Bay. We are already troubleshooting challenges encountered during our first season, and we are excited to improve and expand oystercatcher tracking in the years to come. Make sure to stay tuned for future updates on this exciting addition to our Delaware Bay American Oystercatcher project.

We’d like to extend a huge thank you to the Cape May Point Science Center for providing the transmitters, Cellular Tracking Technologies for their assistance with harness design and transmission troubleshooting, and The Wetlands Institute for skillfully deploying the transmitters in the field. The Delaware Bay American Oystercatcher Project is made possible through a grant provided by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Delaware Watershed Conservation Fund.   

by: Larissa Smith, Senior Wildlife Biologist

by: Larissa Smith, CWF biologist

Congratulations to Luke Tan for having his photo Semipalmated Sandpipers Feeding win Runner Up in the Student Category for NJ Monthly’s Cover Search Competition. Luke volunteers as a CWF Shorebird Steward on the Delaware Bay during the spring shorebird migration. He captured this photo while on Reed’s Beach, Cape May County.

Learn more about Luke and the contest:

https://njmonthly.com/articles/jersey-living/the-winners-of-new-jersey-monthly-and-unique-photos-2021-cover-search-contest/

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.

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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.

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By Dr. Larry Niles, LJ Niles Associates, LLC

I am reviewing a new paper by Sjoerd Duijns, a student working on the benefits of being a fat shorebird. Still, a draft, the paper analyses data from radio-tagged red knots leaving the Bay in good condition (i.e. fat) and finds they may leave later from Delaware Bay than lighter birds but arrive earlier in the breeding grounds because they can pick the best time to leave. They are also more likely to breed successfully and survive the Arctic breeding season to the following fall. In other words, being a fat knot on Delaware Bay makes life good.

So, in light of this new information, how did the red knots and other shorebirds fare in this year’s Delaware Bay Stopover?  One must not be firm, with so many unknowns, but here’s a working biologist’s best guess.

By all accounts it was one of the worst years in recent memory, but with a twist that offers a glimmer of hope.

First, the Bay’s water reflected an unusually cool May and never really warmed to the levels necessary for a really good horseshoe crab spawn until the very end. This caused odd occurrences of crab spawning. For example, crabs bred in greater densities at the southern beaches this year, more than in previous years. The spawn at Norburys Landing, just south of the commercial oyster aquaculture development zone (ADZ), was one of the best this year, and knots and other shorebirds used the area in great number. One can only guess the water temperatures warmed over the wide inter-tidal flats provided just enough to elicit spawning. The same process was true of all the creeks on the Bay.

Second, the knot numbers never really climbed to the levels of the last three years. I’m guessing this was illusory, a consequence of the count being done on two days at the peak. It’s likely many more birds came to the Bay and seeing many birds for too few eggs, left for better resources elsewhere. Those that left were probably short distance winterers – those from relatively close in Florida and other nearby areas. The Bay’s horseshoe crab eggs would help them too, but they can get by on Atlantic Coast clams and mussels. The long-distance birds are the ones that need the Bay’s resources.

Third, when finally, the spawn got underway, a freak concurrence of wind and tide killed many thousands of crabs, potentially damaging the population and very likely ending any possibility of a really great spawn. The cobblestone road of crabs on the water’s edge. We saw none of that this year. Not once.

 

 

Grim results, but here’s the twist. In good years, knots leave near the 27th of May. One day they jam the beach gobbling up eggs, the next day there gone. In bad years, they linger. In 2003, we caught birds on the June 10th.  There’s a cost to this of course, in lower survival and failing production. This year was a new in between. By the time of departure on May 27th, less than a quarter of the knots were prepared to leave. But they hung on until the 30th, blessed with a new flush of horseshoe crab eggs created by a middling spawn and a northwesterly wind churning up the beaches and exposing deeply buried eggs. Did the birds gain enough weight?

It’s hard to say, our last catch of just 33 knots suggests they might have, but an end-of-the-season catch makes a poor assessment. Once birds start leaving, the ones behind could be the light birds not ready to leave, or the heavy birds waiting for better weather. We won’t really know until the fall counts in the southbound stopover or the winter count in Tierra del Fuego.

This, our 21st season of intense research and conservation on Delaware Bay by all accounts will be like no other. Throughout all of it, the team of scientists and volunteers remained inspired, energetic and resourceful. In this one month, we conducted more scientific investigation and conservation than most projects do in an entire year. Whatever the outcome of this year’s stopover season, our team can look hopefully to the north and know that all that could be done for the birds was done.

Those of us that were paid for our time sincerely thank those who volunteered their time including; the stewards that manned the closed beaches helping hundreds of people understand why closures were needed; the volunteers in the banding team who endured long hours of preparing equipment, making bands, sewing nets and keeping cages and of course counting, catching and processing birds; the volunteers who doggedly pursue opportunities to resight flagged birds to estimate numbers and yearly survival; the volunteers that provided meals every single night, a welcome relief from a hard day’s work; and finally, the volunteers that went out all over the Bay to save horseshoe crabs in weather both good and bad. We all did our best. God help the birds and horseshoe crabs.

Dr. Larry Niles has led efforts to protect red knots and horseshoe crabs for over 30 years.

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LEARN MORE

• Delaware Bay Shorebird Project
• 2017 Delaware Bay Shorebird Project blogs
• 2016 Delaware Bay Shorebird Project blogs

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By Dr. Larry Niles, LJ Niles Associates, LLC

Our latest catch of red knots and ruddy turnstones two days ago (May 27) suggests 2017 to be one of the most challenging years for our 20 years of work on Delaware Bay. It challenged the birds for certain.

For example, as of two days ago (May 27), the average weights of red knots remain mired in the mid 160’s when it should be in the 180-gram range. This seems a minor difference but to red knots it means a flight through the cold and often inhospitable north country of Canada and dropping out of the sky never to be seen again or landing and never attempting to breed. We really don’t know for sure what happens to ill-prepared shorebirds, except they are less likely to be seen ever again. In 2017 most birds will be ill prepared.

This season also challenged our understanding because it lies so far outside the norm. To be sure the cause of this dramatic scarcity of horseshoe crab eggs springs from the cold weather this May. We started with a good crab spawn in the first week of May, when water temperatures rose somewhat faster than normal, a consequence no doubt of one of the warmest winters on record. Then cold and wet weather dogged the Bayshore until the day of this post. Today, temperatures will rise no higher than 70 degrees Fahrenheit and the prospects for warmer weather are unlikely for the rest of the week. The cold air temperatures forced down the bay temperature in the second week and although it has gradually improved it is still low by normal standards.

All of this led to generally diminished horseshoe crab eggs especially on the beaches, the mainstay of most stopovers of the past. This year crabs mostly spawned in the creek mouth and outer creeks shoals, mostly spurred to spawn by tidal waters warmed by the movement in and out of the small estuarine systems. Water moves in with the tide and out again to the creek mouths twice a day warming the shoals.

The Importance of Tidal Creek Mouths and Shoals

The creeks also accumulate sand leaving them loose and perfect for crab spawning. Even in good years, egg densities in the creeks top all beaches, no matter where they occur. The sands of the shoals loosen by the waves of the Bay and release more buried eggs than those buried in the beaches, making more available to the birds. The creek mouths on the Cape May peninsula from Green Creek to Moores Creek saved the birds from an even worse fate this year and the best were those that benefited from the restoration of Reeds, Cooks, Kimbles and Pierce Point Beaches. As it happens a major portion of the Bay’s knots stayed in this area throughout the entire month but flying widely in search of pockets of good spawning in other places. This year Norbury’s in the south and Goshen in the north stood out, and extended the core stopover area.

Spawning Starts Again

Then in the last three days all changed. The new moon tides, reaching around 8 feet for four nights in a row, spurred spawning despite the relatively cool water. Today, May 29, the crabs shifted into high gear.

It takes a lot of crabs breeding to bring eggs to the surface on the beaches, there must be enough breeding for one crab to dig up the eggs of another. For the first time, this occurred in the last few night and we finally saw green eggs on the sand. A welcoming sight for the birds, who could barely stand still and gobble up the fat producing eggs. With most of these Arctic nesting shorebirds remaining in the Bay and apparently feeding right into the night, they still might reach the fat gain finish line and only lose a few days reaching the Arctic. The next few days will tell.

Can they though? A good question and just one of the many that have challenged our team’s knowledge of this well-known stopover. With literally centuries of combined experience (many of our team, including this author, are long in the tooth as the Brits would say) we still kept guessing what would happen next throughout the season. Would the birds suffer mighty declines as a consequence of the generally diminished spawn of horseshoe crabs?  Or will they build weight in time to get to the Arctic in good condition? This is usually the central question.

Why Are There Fewer Knots?

An equally intriguing question, however, is why have red knot numbers in Delaware Bay declined this year? We estimate shorebird numbers in two ways, direct observation by aerial and ground counts and a statistically derived estimate based on the resighting of birds flagged with unique IDs. Our aerial and ground counts tell us how one year compares to another because we have been doing shorebirds counts by airplane, boat and on the ground since 1981. This year the number fell dramatically.

At the start of our project on Delaware Bay in 1986, we had nearly 100,000 knots on the Bay and nearly 1.5 million shorebirds of all species. The number of knots declined to around 15,000 in the mid-2000’s, then jumped to over 24,000 over the last four years. This year our best estimate is around 17,969, a 5,000-bird decline. Why did this happen?

One must always consider the possibility of a large group of birds dying. But this is not likely.

More likely, some portion of the knot flock came to the Bay, and on finding too few eggs or too much competition, moved on to better places. The ones moving on could have been the short distance migrants, those who spent their winter in Southeast US or the Caribbean. These birds travel a shorter distance and so have a longer time and lower energy needs than those that winter in South America. These long-distance migrants would have a very difficult time gaining weight on anything other than crab eggs (I explained this in a previous post). There are two reasons to believe the short distance birds moved on from the Bay this year.

The first is the discovery of birds banded in Delaware Bay this year and reported elsewhere. I reported on Mark Faherty’s Ebird report of a knot he saw in Cape Cod, that was flagged by the Delaware Bay Shorebird Team on May 16, 2017. The second line of evidence is the 1,300 birds seen by our team feeding on a 10-mile stretch of the Atlantic Coast marsh from Cape May to Stone Harbor. Play this out over the entire coast of New Jersey and other places with sand and marsh, like Cape Cod, and one could easily imagine 5,000 knots using other places.

But this reduction in population also suggests an explanation for the sudden rise in numbers found in 2013. Did the restoration of habitat on the Delaware Bay coast bring back knots that once used the Bay but stopped because of the lack of available eggs? In other words, did the increase in numbers seen in the Bay reflect a return of birds and not a population increase? This year’s loss may simply be a result of those returning birds, leaving once again.

Let’s hope so. At any rate, eggs are now available to all birds in the Bay and we should start seeing them leave for the Arctic. Let’s hope for that too.

Dr. Larry Niles has led efforts to protect red knots and horseshoe crabs for over 30 years.

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LEARN MORE

• Delaware Bay Shorebird Project
• 2017 Delaware Bay Shorebird Project blogs
• 2016 Delaware Bay Shorebird Project blogs

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By Dr. Larry Niles, LJ Niles Associates, LLC

Four days ago, the shorebirds of Delaware Bay could look forward to a bright future. But in the last week their chances for survival and good production have diminished. In fact, they are as dismal as the cold drizzle pockmarking the murky water in front of our house on Reeds Beach.

The following two graphs tell the story. We captured red knots on May 12 and 16 that showed a normal, although not spectacular progression. Then we made a catch of knots on the 19th and again today on the 23rd, and in total they gained only 2 grams of fat per day. With an average weight of 144 grams at this late date and only 7 days to go before they must leave for the Arctic, their future looks bleak. If current conditions hold, the knots will suffer their worst year in 14 years. Turnstones fared no better gaining less than a gram per day on average.

 

So why this dismal report? Several factors are at work that were covered in my last post. The water temperature of the bay has only just exceeded the threshold for horseshoe crabs to start breeding in earnest. But the nights are cold and the water temperature remains cold. Last night was the first good crab spawn since the birds arrived and it was lackluster. Although there is some spawning in the creek mouth shoals and the lower beaches near Norburys Landing and Villas, our most productive beaches remain nearly devoid of crabs and crab eggs.

The second problem is still a mystery. At this stage only about half of the red knots have found their way into the bay. Weather patterns in the southern US could have been blocking migration for the last 5 days because adverse winds, poor visibility and rain impedes birds progress and could stop northward movement. The conditions have finally let up, so it possible a new cohort of birds might arrive any day. If so they will face a true food fight with many birds already here and desperate for eggs.

However, it may not be the adverse weather but choice that is keeping the population down. Today we learned of a red knot banded on May 16 this year by our counterparts in Delaware that was resighted in Cape Cod by Mark Faherty, the senior scientist for Massachusetts Audubon in Cape Cod. In other words, red knots and other shorebirds are coming to the bay finding too little food or too much competition for the food now available and choose to move on. This is very possible for the short distance migrants because they arrive earlier and have less weight to gain before leaving for the Arctic. Knots wintering in Tierra del Fuego, arrive later and in much worse condition, often times lose muscle mass to get here. They cannot recover that loss and still gain an extra 80 grams on their normal diet of mussels and clams.

We tried to test this second possibility today (May 23) after our red knot catch this morning. Humphrey Sitters, Amanda Dey and I surveyed the intertidal mud flats of the Atlantic Coast from Cape May to Stone Harbor looking closely at the mussel beds. We know that every year red knots, especially short distance birds, use mussels and to some extent clams, rather than come to the bay and feast on horseshoe crab eggs – simply because they can. We found 1700 knots, so it possible even more are spread out further up and down the coast.

In the end, it may turn out to be both explanations. The short distance knots are using the Atlantic Coast and the long-distance birds have yet to arrive. One should remember that the knot is federally listed in both Canada and the US primarily because of the dramatic declines in the long-distance winters. There is still a small window for a successful outcome. The next few days will tell the full story.

Dr. Larry Niles has led efforts to protect red knots and horseshoe crabs for over 30 years.

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LEARN MORE

• Delaware Bay Shorebird Project
• 2017 Delaware Bay Shorebird Project blogs
• 2016 Delaware Bay Shorebird Project blogs

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By Dr. Larry Niles, LJ Niles Associates LLC

A Monumental Work of Conservation

This year marks the 21st year of the Delaware Bay Shorebird Project. As one of the longest running shorebird projects in the world, the only one of its kind in the US, we wanted to memorialize this monumental work. To do so we convened a daylong series of presentations by scientists and managers from all over the world who have worked on the bay. Here are the abstracts. They are worth a look by nearly anyone interested in shorebirds and Delaware Bay.

The presentations ranged widely. We heard talks diving deep into the science of shorebird ecology, like Phil Atkinson’s talk on the use of isotopes of carbon and nitrogen locked in feather samples and what they tell us about where knots spend the winter. Or Paul Smith’s talk on how modeled estimates of shorebird numbers compare to numbers counted from an airplane. On the other side of our scientific work were talks like Laura Chamberlin’s describing the role volunteers play in saving stranded horseshoe crabs rolled over by heavy seas or impinged in concrete rubble and derelict wooden bulkheads. In between were talks like those by David Stallneckt on the role of shorebirds in the transmission of flu viruses and how that knowledge might prevent the next pandemic of flu in people.

I liked Joe Smith’s talk on the restoration of Delaware Bay beaches and Ron Porter’s talk on the movement of shorebird tracked by tiny devices called geolocators.

Altogether they spoke loudly of the 20 years of intense study and conservation by our devoted team of scientists, managers and volunteers. In those 20 years of conservation of Delaware Bay we learned basics of protecting any place loved by people who love wildlife.

Dollars on the Beach

As with many places in this divided country of ours, and in many places in the world, we have witnessed on Delaware Bay a sad and wholly preventable natural resource tragedy. It’s now 20 years since the Atlantic Coast fishing industry nearly decimated the horseshoe crabs of Delaware Bay. They didn’t aim to do this of course, but as with any tragedy of the commons, once the crabs gained value as a bait, everyone wanted their share before it was lost. They hauled away millions of crabs, no one really caring about the consequence to the bay or the wildlife that depended on the crabs. It was a race to the bottom, that would not have been stopped if it weren’t for the scientists and managers that stood up to the industry, many of which gave presentations in our workshop.

The battle gave us several important lessons.

The first revolves around the value of the bay, the crabs and the shorebirds. We biologists, managers and public outreach people often see the natural value of this ecosystem in terms of its meaning to us. We are inspired by the knot’s magnificent journey covering 10,000 miles, often flying 6 days continuously.  We are awed by the natural system that responds to change much as our own body fights for life against all the many abuses we cause or suffer.  But we often miss the real value. During my time on the bay we have defended this valuable natural resource from many assaults, the winner take all crab harvest, the greedy exploitation of crab blood by medical companies, the overreach of aquaculturists plotting out the use of intertidal zones without regard to impact. Underpinning each of these threats is not esoteric value, but real wealth.

I once had a conversation with Rob Winkle, before he retired as Chief of Law Enforcement for NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife. He said “Larry you’ll never be able to protect these crabs, because to many people, they are dollars on the beach”.  In other words, natural wealth is wealth, pure and simple. The question is – do we protect this wealth for our children and grandchildren to make up their own minds about how to spend it?

Protection Requires a Relationship

The real value of natural resources speaks to the second lesson. Protection is not only an action composed research, monitoring and management, it is also a long-term relationship with a place. Those of us working on the bay for 20 years know this very well. The abstracts speak to the relationship and our continuing efforts to understand and improve, to rebuild what was lost, to anticipate what comes next. If in 1997 we started work in the bay to publish a few papers and move on to the next interesting place, the battle to save this vital shorebird stopover and horseshoe crab spawning area would have been lost. The dollars crawling up on the bay beaches means protection doesn’t end with fighting one short-sighted greedy use, because there will be an inevitable successor. It takes a long-term relationship to develop protection and keep it vital and active.

I learned this many times in my career, most recently from my good friend David Santos now a professor at the University of Belem in northern Brazil. We have been doing work in the northern coast, a major wintering areas for Arctic nesting shorebirds. After a passionate discussion on how to best bring greater protection of the area he said “you come here for a few weeks and think you can save this place”. He was right, the truth is we can only help if we commit to work in northern Brazil for enough time to get it right.

And this is my final lesson. There is no easy way to develop a long-term effort to prevent the inevitable series of short sighted use of a natural resource without the help of the people who care.

When Clive Minton and Humphrey Sitters first came to the bay to start the project that is now 20 years old, I was awed by their experience, skill and knowledge. I thought why are they doing this? Neither were being paid only supported to do the work. I was employed as the Chief of NJ Fish and Wildlife’s Endangered Species Program. Now I know, it is only because they care. They are fascinated by the bird’s natural history, they publish scientific papers on the subject but they come year after year because they care.

There’s more to this than just tree-hugging emotionalism. In the US, we have gradually professionalized conservation, ensuring only paid staff do the work with only minor roles for users. It’s an entirely credible position in times of flush budgets. Its pitfall becomes obvious in the age of Trump, years of budget cuts and increasing influence of resource industries dismantle that achieved in the good years. Overall it ends with natural resources declining in nearly every section of the country.

Clive and Humphrey, come from England and Australia where conservation depends heavily on volunteers. It’s a pastime to research, monitor and conserve birds, not necessarily something that pays. For example, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) has over a million members, but over 18000 volunteers working at 200 preserves and only 1300 staff. Remember this is in a country that has a population of 53 million. By contrast in the US with a population of over 300 million National Audubon Society half the number of members and staff and nearly the same budget.

In our experience these numbers don’t speak to the reality of how people actually feel in the US, or at least hear on the bay. We can say without reservation that the research, monitoring and conservation on the bay depends on the dedication of many volunteers taking part in our work. We literally could not do the work without their help.

And so, this is the final lesson. The best way to overcome this cycle caused by the relentless exploitation of the bay’s natural wealth is building a team of people devoted to it study and conservation. This involves the many professionals who care enough to maintain a focus through the ebb and flow and agency prerogatives, a team of retired professionals and young adults seeking experience for their nascent careers and just as importantly as many people who care enough to put time into the yearly care of this valuable natural systems.

Dr. Larry Niles has led efforts to protect red knots and horseshoe crabs for over 30 years.

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LEARN MORE

• Delaware Bay Workshop Program & Abstract
• Delaware Bay Shorebird Project
• 2016 Delaware Bay Shorebird Project blogs

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Team works through threat of downpour to strengthen Delaware Bay’s resiliency and ecology

By Emily Hofmann, Project Coordinator

 

Although the weather was on the brink of being rainy and bleak, that did not stop a team of dedicated biologists and volunteers from building an oyster reef on the Delaware Bayshore this past Saturday. Committed volunteers and young people braved the weather to work alongside American Littoral Society and Conserve Wildlife Foundation to build a near-shore oyster reef at Dyers Cove, at the end of Dyers Creek Road in Newport, Cumberland County, New Jersey.

 

This reef – like the one at South Reeds Beach – was built to protect restoration work done after Hurricane Sandy and provide habitat. Constructed to prevent sand loss from wind-driven waves and create calmer water for spawning horseshoe crabs, this is the third of five such reefs that have been built by the Littoral Society and CWF. The conservation organizations will continue to monitor whether the reef breakwaters help reduce beach erosion and create calmer water for spawning horseshoe crabs.

 

Due to the heavy rain over the course of the week, the conditions were not ideal. Low-tide never went below waist deep, so it was hard to construct the reef accordingly. But that did not stop the team!

 

“Every oyster reef we’ve built so far on the Delaware Bay incorporated a different restoration strategy. We have had to adapt new strategies with what has worked best in the past and with what will realistically work based on site conditions. By blending the successes from the previous reefs with innovative approaches, we have been able to construct three reefs to date,” said Capt. Al Modjeski, Habitat Restoration Program Director for the American Littoral Society.

 

The bayshore beaches need restoration and improved resiliency so that horseshoe crabs have proper breeding grounds. Crab eggs feed migratory shorebirds, like the Red Knot, which stops in New Jersey each spring on its long journey from South America to the Arctic Circle. The Red Knot and other shorebirds help bring $11 million in tourist dollars to New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore region each year.

 

“New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore hosts an annual wildlife spectacle of global significance – the time-honored migration of Red Knots to reach the eggs of these ancient horseshoe crabs,” said David Wheeler, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey Executive Director. “Volunteer projects like this help connect the people of New Jersey with these endangered shorebirds and the largest population of horseshoe crabs in the world.”

 

“Originally, this event was a bare-bones volunteer effort of placing shell bags off the Dyers Cove eastern beach,” said Capt. Al. “But thanks to a donation from Betancourt, Van Hemmen, Greco & Kenyon, we will have a ‘shell-a-bration’ that celebrates the ecology and community of the Delaware Bayshore.”

In 2015, over 130 volunteers and veterans built an oyster reef at South Reeds Beach in the first annual Shell-a-Bration. That same year, Veterans Day on the Bay dedicated the reef to all veterans and highlighted veteran involvement in the effort to restore New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore. The second annual Shell-a-Bration, held in April 2016, saw a handful of dedicated volunteers brave a blizzard to build a reef at Moore’s Beach. The third annual Shell-Bration will be held this coming Spring 2017.

 

“There are many strategies to defend our Delaware Bayshore, but one of the best and most productive are these oyster reefs,” stated Dr. Larry Niles, a biologist with the American Littoral Society and Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey. “They not only replicate a lost but important habitat on Delaware Bay – reefs once covered much of the bayshore – but they provide just enough protection to make a difference in how long our beaches persist against the unrelenting forces of nature. In a way, we are fighting nature with nature.”

The projects are being funded by National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) through their Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resiliency Grants Program, and are being developed in partnership with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife.

 

Emily Hofmann is a project coordinator for Conserve Wildlife Foundation

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LEARN MORE

• Learn more about our work to restore Delaware Bay at RestoreNJBayshore.org
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation’s Delaware Bay Restoration Work
• Previous oyster reef building events along the Delaware Bay
• What goes on along the Delaware Bay

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NEW, WEEKLY UPDATES FROM NEW JERSEY’S BEACH NESTING BIRD PROJECT TEAM

by Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager

 

For this week’s installment, I thought it would be fun to have you tag along with me on a day in the field, so you can get a sampling of what goes into our beach nesting bird program. Let’s call it, “A Day in the Life of a Beachnester.”

 

Today it is an early 4 am rise to beat the beach crowds and heat, as we are banding black skimmers at our Belmar colony. This is the first time our program has banded skimmers –  it is a collaborative effort with other organizations/agencies in both New York and New Jersey – we hope to find out more about their survival, longevity, and movement, both local and long distance. Everything goes well, we are able to corral and band about 35 chicks in less than an hour. This part of the day represents the science portion of the beach nesting bird project, science for the sake of study and a better understanding of our birds, but more importantly to gather information to help us manage and recover endangered species.

 

With no time to spare, it is now off to Leonardo along Sandy Hook Bay where CWF is hosting a summer wildlife experience for kids. No surprise, I am the guest today to teach the kids about beach nesting birds. I explain why piping plovers and American oystercatchers are at risk, and then give them a chance to use a high powered birding scope to try to read bands I have placed on decoy birds. We definitely have some budding biologists in the mix. Education is key to our project, unlike other endangered species that mostly live out of sight or reach, beachnesters spend the breeding season on the same beaches visited by millions of tourists and residents. If they are going to learn to “share the shore” with our endangered birds, outreach is essential.

 

Next up is a stop at Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park, one of our important nesting areas in Monmouth County. For most of the season we are erecting and adjusting fence to protect nesting areas, but today we are working with the park to reduce the fence, as many of our birds have successfully nested and started to leave the area. First we count and locate any remaining least terns – these surveys are the base of our project – we need this data to track population trends and seasonal productivity as metrics of progress towards recovery. Before we remove any fence at this site, we also conduct surveys of sea beach amaranth, an endangered plant that shares the beach with our nesting birds. We locate a few plants and that dictates how we readjust the fence, the plants need protection from trampling by beachgoers or vehicles used by the park to maintain their beach.

 

 

Coordination with municipalities or other land owners that host beach nesting birds is a critical part of our project, as their activities can impact nesting success as much as beachgoer’s recreational use of the beach. So there is one more stop today to assess whether a maintenance request can be granted in a way that won’t put birds at risk. That done, it is time to start the two hour drive back to our office in Cape May County. I am ready for a nap, but no luck, as the truck becomes a mobile office to take care of other unattended business (while someone else drives of course). There are calls with several other towns, check-ins with our seasonal staff members that are spread out all along the coast, and finally dealing with a broken down vehicle (not ours fortunately) and a person who refused to take their dog off a nesting site.

 

Back at the office, it is one last check of email, entering a little bit of the data we collected today, and finally time to head home. Every day is a little different, but this day has been a good cross-section of the range of things we do on the project. It is tempting to think we just pop up fence and signs and hope the birds do well, but protection and recovery of our endangered beach nesting birds requires a comprehensive strategy addressing all the factors that impact nesting success.

 

LEARN MORE

• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Beach Nesting Bird Project
• Conserve Wildlife Foundation Field Guide: Piping Plover