I have written about the shorebirds of Delaware Bay in many posts, most recently here. The story is familiar to many people of the area and to shorebird people around the world. A world-class stopover of arctic-bound shorebirds was decimated by the shortsighted overharvest of breeding horseshoe crabs, which are used mainly as bait for catching conch and American eel.
The entire issue is the domain of the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission (ASMFC) who presided over the over-harvest then fought all efforts to close it down to let the crabs recover. Now the regional commission, itself a part of the National Marine Fisheries Service, has “reformed” the process by disbanding the Shorebird Technical Committee — comprised of shorebird biologists who have consistently called for a moratorium, and formed a new “Delaware Bay Ecosystem Technical Committee”. This new committee limits the role of NJ and DE shorebird biologists by including horseshoe crab biologists and adding new participants from New York, Maryland and Virginia — states with less public-trust responsibility, and a greater interest in the market for Delaware Bay’s horseshoe crab population.
A few days ago, fresh hope emerged in the form of a new working group of conservationists, biologists and educators who agreed to work together to fully restore shorebirds and horseshoe crabs to the Delaware Bay independent of the ASMFC. The group met at the Penn Foundation office in Philadelphia to begin the process of deciding the best actions to restore the Delaware Bay migration stopover to the condition of its glory days, free of special interest influence.
The group will form on the basis of an adaptive-management experiment, which is to say, they will choose targets (or numbers) of shorebirds, breeding horseshoe crabs and densities of crab eggs that characterize a recovery. Then actions will be chosen that will best speed recovery. Finally, the group will assess progress toward targets to decide the following year’s menu of actions. No progress means actions must changed or intensified. Not rocket science but sufficiently objective to ensure projects get done and are evaluated against their contribution toward achieving targets.
What actions will speed recovery?
- Restoring a rubble-strewn bayshore beach to superior horseshoe crab spawning habitat
- Restoring a non-functional impoundment to working order
- Stewardship efforts that protect shorebirds and crabs while allowing people to use beaches for bathing, fishing or photography
- Assisting communities in developing closures of horseshoe crab harvests
- Train fishermen in the use of advanced methods that minimize the use of crabs as bait (e.g., bait bags or use of artificial baits)
Rubble-strewn beach in foreground at Moore’s Beach, with shorebirds and gulls using rubble-free area in background
What I find most inspiring about this group is its core principles — 1) it will not seek funding for itself but will leave fundraising to its participants to achieve actions recommended by the group, and 2) to help create income-producing opportunities for local communities. This includes helping tourism business, steering habitat restoration efforts toward local businesses, and developing standards that allow baymen to create boat tours of remote areas that show off the unique birdlife of the Delaware Bay.
