The following six posts describe the progress of NJ’s Delaware Bay Shorebird Stopover Project. We are several groups working together to collect data and implement stewardship of shorebirds and horseshoe crabs. The core team focuses on trapping shorebirds with cannon nets to tag them with uniquely inscribed leg flags, determine condition, take blood and tissue samples, and for 30 red knots instrument with state-of-the-art satellite transmitters.
A net powered by two cannon fired projectiles captures shorebirds for the NJ Shorebird Project Photos from Megan Racey USFWS
Three other teams conduct surveys. In the first, three surveyors will comb all the accessible horseshoe crab spawning areas to resight red knots, ruddy turnstones, and sanderlings with leg flags. Tracking individual flag codes allows survival rates and numbers to be estimated. The second team surveys the density of horseshoe crab eggs buried and within the top 5 cm of the beach surface. An entire team participates in a baywide count from the ground, boat, and airplane. The counts are coordinated to provide the most reliable estimate of each species. Both surveys have been ongoing since the 1980s.
To those reading these posts for the first time, they were originally written to our larger team, the people who conduct other work connected to our project’s outcome or helped fund or permit it. The team is funded by the US Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, Environment Canada, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service and is affiliated with the American Littoral Society, the NJ Conserve Wildlife Foundation, and NJ Audubon.
Twenty-Six years ago, the project started with an expedition to Delaware Bay led by Allan Baker and Clive Minton in 1997. As chief of the NJ Endangered Species Program, I at first participated in the 3-week long effort and then led it with Clive, Humphrey Sitters, Joanna Burger, Mark Peck, Guy Morrison and others throughout the long history of this survey, probably one of the longest and comprehensive ecological surveys in the US.
The NJ Delaware Bay Shorebird team in 2010
The style of the project emerged as a union of the US and more international perspectives on conservation. Government agencies have dominated conservation in the US ever since the Reagan era attack on the validity of amateur or volunteer science. In NJ, developers were suing volunteers for submitting the locations of endangered species used to stop unwise development. Agencies collect data in the UK, Europe, and Australia, but much more comes from volunteer-dominated science groups as lofty as the British Trust for Ornithology or specialized as the Hedgehog Society. Our project fits in between the US and International approaches, volunteers collect much of the data, but many are experts donating their time. All take part in training reinforced by years of experience. On Delaware Bay groups provide support for volunteers like Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River’s cooks, who provide dinners for the Shorebird Team. Return the Favor anchored at the Wetlands Institute supports a volunteer horseshoe crab rescue program. American Littoral Society conducts volunteer horseshoe crab tagging and with Conserve Wildlife Foundation a volunteer stewardship program. The projects provides data to all academic or agency staff with clear conservation goals. As a bonus, volunteer time provides in-kind match, partially justifying the Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant.
The next six blogs are the update emails sent to the wider team, including funders, past team members, and field-level agency staff. I keep these blogs as a record of my fieldwork and for those who enjoy wildlife protection in action.
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2022 Delaware Bay Shorebird Team Update 1 4.26.22. First Report
Dear Team, We are rapidly approaching the season, so I thought I would brief everyone on what to expect.
1. Dr. Joel Feigin from United Healthcare and Dr. Dasai from the Center for Disease Control helped us develop our team’s COVID protocols. Stephanie will summarize the meeting to share with the team, and we will brief everyone at the start of the season. Briefly, we will ask that all of you reduce your exposure ( no go-away parties at the neighborhood bar!) a week before arrival if possible. We will rapid-test everyone on arrival and ask you wear a mask only when in unventilated places. Rapid tests will be available at the main house for the cooks or anyone who wishes to stay for dinner.
2. We rented three houses this year, Norbergs, 86 beach road, and the newly rebuilt John Mckennae house across the street. Gwen and Steph have already assigned people to each house. Jane Galetto’s team of cooks will deliver meals again for us this year.
3. We are conducting the usual work, including egg surveys, resightings surveys, and trapping. We also have 22 satellite transmitters to attach this year, including new Lotek Sunbird tags. We are also conducting an experiment designed by Joe Smith, Stephanie Feigin, and Theo Deihl to determine the relationship between surface egg numbers with buried eggs. Joanna Burger will also conduct a second year of surveys on the effectiveness of the stewardship project. We will brief everyone on the first night. We expect several groups to join us this year, including NFWF foundation staff, for two days.
4. We expect people to start arriving on the 8th. We should be ready to do recon on the 12th and trap on the 13th. We will try to finish up by the 31st and leave the site on June 2nd.
I am very concerned about the bird’s prospects this year. The ASMFC is busy trying to expand the killing of female crabs, ignoring the lack of any sustained increase in crab numbers and the lack of any improvement in egg densities. They also ignore the low count of 6800 knots last year, the lowest count ever. Moreover, as far as we know, the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife still maintains families of peregrine falcons on Delaware Bay and the AC coast, even though all other states have removed their managed coastal peregrines because of impacts on shorebirds. We think Peregrines had a significant effect on numbers last year.
The return of our team after these last few years of COVID is a blessing to all of us here. I look forward to seeing you all again. Larry
First Update
Lawrence Niles PhD
Wildlife Restoration Partnerships
