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This blog focuses on the conservation of wildlife and rural communities that depend upon them.  These blogs are meant to help people who care for wildlife and would like to join in the many efforts aimed at improving conditions for wildlife and habitat. Conserving wildlife not only helps animals but rural communities that rely on hunting, fishing, bird watching, and other outdoor sports to create an economy that overcomes the economic burden of living in important ecological places like Delaware Bay.

Conserving Wildlife

Lagao do Piexe 2025 – Lifting Off

by Larry Niles
written by Larry Niles

Feature photo by Stephanie Feigin

previous post

We made a new catch of 8 knots on our last day in the field (Oct 1), bringing the total number of released birds with satellite transmitters to 19, and thus completing this campaign. We were fortunate to find these birds south of the Lagoon inlet, although it is very likely they are the same flock that Antonio discovered before we arrived. The re-discovery of this flock of 120 red knots warrants some attention.

Red knots in flight in Lagoa do Piexe Park Brazil

The three sites we trapped and the area we surveyed for red knots

 

When we first arrived at Lagoa do Peixe National Park, we trapped where the large flock was last seen, the area north of the lagoon inlet. We found only about 30 knots and assumed the rest of the flock had moved south, ultimately to wintering grounds in Tierra del Fuego. We tagged three of these birds, who stayed in LDP, but the others moved to inaccessible sites within the lagoon, or so we thought.

We had to look elsewhere for knots, so when Mateus Haas left with Victoria Becker and William Salvi Kuhn, they volunteered to drive along the beach from Mostardense to Pinhal, 140 km without any river inlets to block their path. They found a new flock of 20 knots about 10 km north of the appropriately named lighthouse Farol da Solidao (lighthouse of solitude) and 70 km from Mostardense. We caught another 8 knots from this flock, but they also disappeared, leaving us with only one option: to go south of the lagoon inlet. However, our expectations were muted, and we lowered our goals for the expedition, assuming no birds were in the area.

Mateus crossing a tidal stream on beach north of Mostardos

 

We assumed no knots in the Park below the lagoon because none were seen in earlier surveys, although they were weeks ahead of our arrival. Also we saw none there in 2023.   But thankfully we were wrong.

 

When we arrived, we found 120 birds and immediately realized we had miscalculated. In 2022 and 2023, the ocean swell and currents kept the inlet closed with sand. When the inlet closes, it’s a completely natural event that benefits the commercial fishers by helping shrimp multiply, which improves the fishery. However, it also allows gill net fishermen to drive across the inlet and set their nets. It’s still a dangerous crossing, as in 2023 we nearly lost a truck, but the local people know the way across with only small cars.

In 2023 we crossed the inlet several times, but it was treacherous if we strayed from the local people tracks. Here fishermen saw us and came out to help.

 

But this year was different. The inlet is open, and a deep channel flows from the ocean to the lagoon, preventing any vehicles from riding the southern beach. Knots, who notoriously avoid disturbance, voted with their wings to relocate to the south side. On the first day heading south, after a 2-hour drive, we found over 60 knots. The second day, the entire flock of 120.

Thankfully, this lack of disturbance proved decisive. With over a hundred birds in the flock, we were able to make two more catches that brought our total instrumented birds to 19. And although a very small sample size, the birds told us an interesting story.

Gwen Binsfeld, Steph Feigin and Francisco Zanella search for knots across the inlet

Stephanie Feigin twinkles knots closer to the net. Twinkling a technical term developed by Clive Minton describes the subtle skill of moving cautious and prone to flight shorebirds closer to the catch area of the cannon net.

Antonio Brum twinkles birds closer to the net

Antonio Brum and Larry Niles holds a bird originally banded in Delaware Bay and recaptured on LDP south of the inlet. The bird was an adult at a fat free weight of 125 grams. I hold a heavy juvenile weighting 150 grams. Photo by Francisco Zanella

Antonio, Douglas  Da Silva and Tamires Fogaca Martins sample a red knot for Avian Influenza. The bird was caught on the beach north of the Lighthouse of Solitude. Photo by Francisco Zanella.

 

The recaptured knot  >UP is being measured. All birds are fully measured, weighed sampled for AI and sex determination and finally tagged.  This birds was originally banded in Delaware Bay 2012.. Photo by Theo Diehl

Unlike our earlier catches, where all birds weighed less than 130 grams, a fat-free weight for knots—the second group of knots from the undisturbed south—included birds weighing up to 160 grams. As I explained in my earlier post, weight provides comfort against starvation but increases the risk of predation. However, this late group mixed everything up. Adults were at both high and low weights, as were the other ages, so they gained some weight but not enough to reduce predator avoidance, maintaining a good balance.

Like the other catches all had yet to molt their flight feathers. Adults displayed feathers worn from years of flying, while juveniles had crisp, new feathers grown only a few months ago in their Arctic breeding area. Of particular interest were the modestly worn feathers of subadults or young birds from the previous nesting season. These birds stay in their wintering area during their first year, then join adults heading north in their second year, or so we believe. As juveniles, they get their feathers in early July, but as subadults, they molt later than juveniles but earlier than adults.

The wings of three knots caught on LDP south of the inlet. The bird on the lower right is a juvenile, born this year in the Arctic. Her black sub-terminal wing coverts confirm the lack of wear on the feather and yellow legs. The birds on the top is an adult showing wear on feathers grown last year and likely to molt in the wintering area. The bird on the left I judged a sub adult, or a bird born last year.

As an aside, the skill of gleaning this information from feathers is practically a sacred right for aspiring shorebird biologists. I learned this from British shorebird scientists like our beloved Clive Minton or my friend Humphrey Sitters. In Britain, it is a highly honored skill to discern the life stage of a bird through subtle changes in feather wear and molt. We saw all three groups in both catches, and distinguishing them will help us interpret the movements we observe from the transmitters.

We left Lagoa do Peixe on Oct 2 and arrived home on October 4, and I am writing now on Oct 8. The success of our work can be seen in this one image of the tracks from the Sunbird transmitters we attached to the knots. They transmit regularly, so we will get a clear picture of their movement and stopovers all the way to the wintering area. As I write, one bird has already arrived in Bahia Lomas, and we will know very important information from this. The area is about to undergo significant change, with ambitious plans for wind power and other new infrastructure. These data will help defend the knots. And it will be for some time because our team has been successful with attachments that last.

This map summarizes all the locations of red knots in the LDP until Oct 2.

This maps shows knots tagged with satellite transmitters leaving LDP. Two are already in Tierra del Fuego

 

So, our project was a success despite all the difficulties we faced. The success belongs to the many people who took part in the work, and I will list the team again. From North America, Stephanie Feigin, Theo Diehl, and Gwen Binsfeld; from Brazil Antônio Coimbra de Brum, Roger da Silva, Francisco Roberta Zanella, and Dan Gonzalez. Mateus Haas, Victoria Becker, Will Salvi Kuhn, and Luisa Matuella Fra helped during the first week, and Tamires Fogaca Martins and Douglas da Silva in the second. We thank all of our team for their quick learning and hard work, enduring more net sets per day than any team has before. Antonio’s major professor Uwe Horst Schulz visited for a few days and helped us work through some problems. We are very thankful to the folks at ASA and especially the owner Julia de Brum Marantes, who reopened the cabins just for us to have a safe place to anchor our expedition. We thank the Lagoa do Peixe National Park and ICMBio staff for helping us and giving us permission to do the work.

Uwe Shultze, Antonio’s PHD advisor at Unisinos walks the beach of LDP

 

We held a final dinner after returning from the field. Antonio’s family joined team members at a traditional Brazilian restaurant Churrascaria Cultura Gaúcha. From left to right Douglass and his wife Bruna K. Reichert and their son Murilo Ribeiro ( running around the resturant) Stephanie Feigin, Gwen Binsfeld, Larry Niles, Edison Kufner, (Husband) Alcedina Brum (sister), Santa Olíbia Brum (mother), Theo Diehl,Roger and his wife Larissa C. Martins , and Antonio Bru

 

Churrascaria Cultura Gaúcha

We stayed on a 400 acre farm known as Aldeia Santuario das Aves or ASA. The owners, Julia and her father Renato Callares de Brum Marantes  (with thier farm hand Caubi Gomes de Lima) repurposed the farm to continue raising sheep and horses but devoting much of the land to a refuge for wildlife.  This photo was taken in 2023 before Senhor Renato‘s death earlier this year.   ASA had been closed since but Julia reopened ASA for our team.  We are very grateful.

We also thank Christian Friis of the Canadian Wildlife Service, Paul Smith of Environment Canada, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for support.

 

 

 

 

 

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Conserving WildlifeLagoa do Peixe

Lagoa do Piexe 2025 – A Ground Game

by Larry Niles
written by Larry Niles

A Ground Game

previouis post

A red knot with a satellite transmitter in Lagoa do Piexe National Park in Brazil

When we began our work in LDP, the goal was to catch birds here, so we could track them along their wintering areas in Argentina and Chile. Those locations pose significant challenges to fieldwork, finding cooperative partners and procuring black powder chief among them. We believed that if we tagged red knots in LDP, we could avoid the difficulties encountered elsewhere and gain a more comprehensive view of all wintering areas in the Southern Cone of South America. However, trapping in LDP is challenging, and after a week of effort, we have only tagged 6 birds.

Stephanie Feigin and Theo Diehl attached a Sunbird Satelilite Transmitter  to a red knot caught on LDP

Antonio Brum releases a red knot tagged with a satellite transmitter

 

It’s not due to the lack of expertise or the lack of trying. Ours is a team that has captured more red knots, and probably more shorebirds overall, than most research teams in the world. Unfortunately, the problem we face is that we are running against the ecological grain of this complicated species.While trapping we met the staff of ICMBio the government agency managing the Park.  I describe ICMBio in our work in Northern Brazil in this earlier post

 

Our team in Lagoa do Piexe with staff of ICMBio, the Brazilian goverment agency managing the park. I wrote of the agency and thier ground breaking work placing rural communities first in the use of natural resources. The Brazilan management of natural resources needs more funding but in concept it is a superior method when compared to US natural resource use which prioritise industry instead of local communities see post here

Our previous expeditions took place in the North American spring, aiming to capture birds before they traveled to their Arctic breeding grounds. This was our main goal for the project funded by the Canadian Wildlife Service and Environment Canada. We tagged nearly a hundred red knots with satellite transmitters provided by the two agencies, and the results offer one of the most comprehensive and detailed views of red knot breeding areas in the Arctic of any shorebird. Moreover, tagging birds in LDP flying from wintering areas in the Southern Cone of South America gave us a detailed picture of this most endangered segment of red knots.  Knots came to LDP to build weight, some reaching 240 grams, double the fat free weight of a red knot to make flights that could last 7 days at once.  This sub-population once numbered 65,000 birds. Now, only about 15,000 remain.

 

Red knots photographed by Antonio Brum near the end of the fall (northbound)  stopover in Lagoa do Piexe Brazil

 

The abundant supply of bivalves here kept the birds in LDP long enough to catch and tag them.  But now, we are aiming to catch birds in a Brazilian spring of constant sensory  delight. Orchids blooming on a giant fig tree, a meowing cat frog singing an eerie song, and giant daisies gracing the coastal dunes, while red knots fly south to their wintering areas in Tierra del Fuego. We thought the catch would be bountiful here, but our experience has proven otherwise.

 

 

Why?

 

Because at this point in their 10,000-mile migration, the birds have already passed through the gauntlet of the U.S. coast, Atlantic Ocean crossing, and Amazonia. Having survived that daunting ordeal,  the birds could now feel relatively safe enough to keep their weight to a minimum. They no longer need vast stores of fat to cover the rest of their journey, because most of the coast from LDP to Chile is good foraging habitat. Like people, birds prefer to stay trim, although for entirely different reasons. A lean weight gives them a better chance to avoid the talons of avian predators such as aplomado falcons.  It’s a basic tenet of shorebird biology: more weight helps when food supplies are uncertain, but at the same time, it increases the risk of predation. Lower weight allows a better defense against predators, but it also poses a greater risk of starvation.  Agencies like N.J. Fish and Wildlife ignore this when they encourage peregrine falcons to nest along Delaware Bay, where peregrines were never meant to nest. The result: a shorebird buffet for falcons feasting on shorebirds trying to build weight to reach their Arctic nesting grounds.

a pergrine falcon on Delaware Bay

 

In other words, the birds don’t need to build weight here, and they very likely move quickly from place to place. Plus, you only see them in low numbers. If you were to add them all up over the entire migration season, from September to December, they will number in the thousands. But on any given day, the birds are few and far between.  We surveyed nearly 100 kilometers of wild beach, populated by only a few small villages and wildness unlike any other coastline I have seen. In this entire stretch we counted just 50 red knots.  Small numbers but still we have 6 birds with sat transmitters pumping out data that can be used to understand knots and this wonderful stopover.

Location of red knots tagged with Satellite transmitters north of the Praia do Farol da Solidão Rio Grande do Sul

red knot locations on Lagoa do Peixe Brazil

 

The odds are against us, but we will keep at it until the end. It’s a ground game at this point.  But At least we get to enjoy the beauty of a glorious springtime in southern Brazil and witness the struggle of both wildlife and people in this wild land.

 

We saw this epiphytic orchid (Cattleya purpurata) growing high in the Fig tree above our cabins.

 

The orchid above grew in a fig tree that itself is a wonder. Fig trees are protected in Brazil

A dune daisy ( Senecio crassiflorus) seen in abundance in the dunes of LDP

 

A Greater Rhea seen in a cattle pasture bordering LDP

A sea lion found resting on the Beach of LDP. We saw many sea lion pups dead on the beach, victims of strong surf of the sea.

 

Sea Lion Pup trying to recover after being washed ashore in a storm

A magellanic penquin seen along the shoreline of LDP.

 

A Magellanic Penquin resting on Lagoa do Piexe after a severe storm passed. Many die.

Horses roaming free on the streets of in Mostardense, Brazil. Horeses are ubiqoutous in the area and a vital part of the of the culture of Rio Grande do Sol.

wild horses of LDP

Wild horses of LDP grazing while Chilean Flamingoes forage in the Lagoon

PS – We caught more birds while writing this blog, which I will discuss in the final blog

Next post 

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BrazilConserving WildlifeLagoa do PeixeLagoa do Piexe 2025

Lagoa do Peixe 2025 – A Furious Sea

by Larry Niles
written by Larry Niles

Lagoa do Peixe Journal – A Furious Sea

9.24.25

 

The spring morning sun cast a brilliant light over our compound of cottages near Mostardos, Brazil, along the rugged mainland shoreline of Lagoa do Piexe. LDP is a 100-mile-long lagoon, best known as a major stopover for red knots flying north to their Arctic breeding grounds. This is our third trip to LDP, but this time is different.

Biologist Stephani Feigin and I have visited the bay twice before to help Brazilian biologist Dr. Antonio Brum, a postdoc at Unisinos University in Porto Alegre, Brazil. We joined forces to attach satellite transmitters on red knots migrating to their Arctic breeding grounds to assist Canadian Wildlife Service biologist Christian Friis in locating breeding sites in the cold tundra of Nunavut. These long-distance travelers winter in Tierra del Fuego and are federally threatened in the US because of the many dangers along their 10,000-mile flyway, the collapse of horseshoe crabs in Delaware Bay chief among them.

 

Antonio Brum ( center right) loads cartidges for the cannon net in Lagoa do Piexe   photo by Dan Gonzalez

 

A summary image of all the tracks of red knots with satellite transmitters attached in 2023 in Lagoa do Peixe Brazil. Map by Stephanie Feigin and Theo Diehl.

Although it’s fall at home and all the birds head south for winter, here in the southern hemisphere, it is spring, with a morning chorus of birds and flowers everywhere. It’s a strange contrast, like being in the middle of a road with cars going in both directions. Resident birds fly north, while our shorebirds fly south. Why did we come to study birds moving in the opposite direction?

Sadly, we can no longer trap birds where we would prefer. Before the revolution of satellite tracking we trapped knots in Bahia Lomas, a bay located at the eastern mouth of the Strait of Magellan in Chile. It is the knots’ most important wintering area, and we have trapped there for many years, most expeditions chronicled in this blog. But recently, it’s become harder to work in Chile. A lack of support has crippled our efforts just as the need for more data has grown dramatically.

Wind power has reached the coast of South America, driven by a capitalist zeal similar to our own. Wind turbines sprout like weeds along the birds’ flyway, with little understanding of their impacts on both resident and migratory birds. Stephanie and I, working with many other groups, have been studying these impacts mainly along the US coast. We are using satellite transmitters—tiny, feather-light devices—that have rapidly transformed wildlife research over the last five years, and our data has helped US agencies avoid impacts on migrant shorebirds. However, we lack enough information to assess the effects on the most critical wintering areas in Chile and Argentina.

Stephanie Feigin attaches a satellite transmitter to red knot

A Sunbird Satelite Transmitters attached to a red knot in Lagoa do Piexe Brazil.

 

Sat tags have transformed our understanding of all birds, especially shorebirds and even more specifically the red knot, because they fly extraordinary distances and undertake long migrations. The data from these transmitters is precise, allowing for accurate location and an estimate of altitude—both vital metrics necessary to study the impacts of the 400-foot-tall turbine blades, which can chop up wildlife like a vertical blender. Our work has documented the knot’s extraordinary migration through the growing network of wind power projects in the US. But we know very little about movements in the knot’s most important wintering areas in Chile and Argentina.  Attaching satellite tags to knots passing through LDP will help us.

Red knots feeding on the incoming tide in Bahia Lomas Chile

Biologists Stephanie Feigin and Theo Diehl came from the US, along with Gwen Binsfeld, our quartermaster for the Delaware Bay team. Antonio’s team includes a whole flock of budding bird biologists from the lab of Dr. Virginia Petry, a professor at Unisinos University of Porto Alegre. They include Dan Gonzalez-Kosasky, Roger, Louisa, Francisco, and Will. In a few days, even more students will arrive to complete the team.

 

Professor Petry and three students Julia Finger, Victoria Becker, Victoria Benemann during 2023 expedition to Lagoa do Piexe

 

Under a brilliant blue sky dotted with snow-white clouds, we spent our first day in the field — literally in a field — while horses, sheep, and cows watched silently with judgment. Our home base is a ranch with guest cabins, but the main source of income is livestock. We spent the morning testing Antonio’s new cannons and the power of Brazilian black powder, the same used in muzzleloader rifles in the U.S. As one would expect, we can buy it quite easily in the U.S., even online. We couldn’t find black powder in Chile, even with the help of federal agencies. But here in Brazil, we found plenty in religious goods stores — the kind where you can buy statues of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Regardless of the source, we need to test its strength by firing the cannon’s projectiles under real-life conditions. After a few test fires with our net attached, we were satisfied and headed out to the Atlantic beachfront facing the lagoon, where we were met with a marine tumult. We couldn’t even go out on the beaches with our trucks because the water was too high.

But we are ready for action tomorrow.

We tested the cannon net at first to adjust the black powder charge.  In the first video, we used a bit too much powder. In the second, we adjusted the charge and extended the jump rope so the net could go out further from the net set.  We had to do this to keep the net above the swash zone and still reach the water line. Videos by Theo Diehl and Stephanie Feigin

An angry sea at the Lagoa do Piexe inlet.

The Lagoa do Piexe Team
Antônio Coimbra de Brum
Douglas da Silva
Luisa Matuella Frá
Mateus Haas
Roger da Silva
Tamires Fogaça Martins
Victoria Deecken Becker
William Salvi Kuhn
Francisco Roberto Zanella
Stephanie Feigin
Theo Diehl
Gwen Binsfeld
Larry Niles

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Delaware BayDelaware Bay 2025

The Birds Need More Crabs – Delaware Bay Shorebird and Horseshoe Crab Project Report 6.2.25

by Larry Niles
written by Larry Niles

As I stare out over a wave-tossed sea, shrouded in mist, I wrestle with contrasting feelings of sorrow for leaving the bay and the thrill of going home after nearly three weeks of hard work, perennial tiredness, hunger, and a mixed-up emotion of a job well done that nevertheless remains undone.  Most of the shorebirds have left the bay and are winging their way to James Bay, ultimately to their Arctic homeland.  The shorebird team members have all left, while the egg team will continue surveying eggs until mid-June. We will keep up surveillance through the resighting team led by Bill Pitts and Theo Diehl.

Members of the 2025 shorebird and horseshoe crab project. From the bottom left Susan Linder, Charles Duncan, Lisa Karcher, Stephanie Feigin, , Philippe Sitters, Alinde Fotjik, Amanda Dey, Larry Niles, Luca Sheldon, Antonio Brum, Gwen Binsfeld, Jay Bolden, Humphrey Stitters, Gerry Binsfeld, Susan Moody, Theo Diehl, Chris Buondonno, Connor Darlington, Peter Fuligar, Juntine Torres, Jason Allen-Roomet, Ren Monte Jared Altomare, Joanna Burger, MIke Gochfeld and John Bloomfield are missing. Photo by Charles Duncan.

 

Humphrey Sitters and I did a final recci on May 29th and found about 5000-6000 knots still on the beaches from Reeds to Norburys, but a subsequent survey on May 30 found only 600 knots, 1800 ruddy turnstones marking the end of the stopover.  The horseshoe crab spawn which started so promising ended poorly .  Egg cluster densities were down significantly a combination of not enough horseshoe crabs ( too much killing) and cool May weather.

 

These histograms show four weeks of horseshoe crab egg data for 2025 and compares it to the same from 2022 to 2024 showing egg clusters down for all weeks this month.

 

Our last catch on May 26th of 64 knots, 30 Turnstones, and 30 sanderlings told of the impact to the birds trying to gain weight.  At the start, shorebirds, including the red knot, gained weight at a greater rate than the average for the last 28 years, but they lost that edge by week three and ended up leaving with only about 40% of the flock reaching 180 grams, a key metric for the project. As you can see from the images below, the bird’s weight gain stalled as they approached departure, and barely 40% made it out of the stopover in good condition.

These busy graphs show all our red knot, ruddy turnstone and sanderling  average wts from  all catches made from 1997 -2025. This year started well but as egg densities diminished the birds barely gained weight.

 

After nearly two decades of agency inaction, half measures and data manipulation that gives the industries making money from killing horseshoe crabs the upper hand, this year may be showing us real change, both good and bad. It’s challenging to identify trends in the noisy data, and it’s even harder to discern them while we’re still collecting data; however, a broad picture is apparent.

First the good.  We caught, banded, radio-tagged, and sampled all the red knots, ruddy turnstones, and sanderlings needed to continue the assessment of status and condition.  We conducted two baywide counts of birds and were religious about daily recce’s, giving both a long-term and day-by-day understanding of how shorebirds used the bay habitats. This is crucial for our ongoing research on shorebird movements and status assessment, and also supports our beach and marsh restoration efforts, providing us with a better understanding of the birds’ and crabs’ preferences. For example, next winter we hope to restore Kimbles and Baycove beaches, and our survey this year proved valuable in determining where sand is best placed for the maximum benefit.

Team removing birds from a catch on Moore Beach . Around the net from right Gwen Binsfeld, Alinde Fotjik, Antonio Brum, Larry Niles, Charles Duncan and Stephanie Feigin, Ren Monte, Amanda Dey and Humphrey Sitters. Photo by J. Burger

We also sampled nearly all the birds we caught for Avian Influenza, a brewing and potentially lethal epidemic popping up around the country.  Lisa Karcher from St. Jude’s Hospital, a powerhouse of avian flu investigation, suspects H5N1 in gulls on the bay, a result that could reshape our work.

We instrumented 10 birds with satellite tags, thereby significantly enhancing our understanding of the habitats that are important in and around the bay.   This year we will use this data to determine the key locations in the bay where birds feed and roost, particularly night roosts. Below are the maps of four birds instrumented this year.  The fifth map shows the places where knots roost at night. ( all maps by Theo Diehl)

 

 

 

The bad news is both serious and uncertain.  Once again, cold winds swept the bay, reducing spawning activity at times to a trickle.  And it seems that it is not a random encounter, but rather a potential change in the weather.  Cold water interrupted the crab spawn in three of the last 6 years and the number of cold water days in the bay during May is increasing overall.  It may be a counterintuitive impact of climate change.

The cause might be the slowing of the mighty Gulf Stream because of the long-predicted collapse of the North Atlantic Oscillation. The Gulf Stream is part of a worldwide river of ocean currents driven by warm water flowing north from the equator that gradually becomes more saline as the warm waters evaporate. Water dense with salt will fall through ocean water of normal salinity starting a current that heads south along the coasts of Europe and North Africa  eventually turning west towards Brazil and the Gulf Stream. It is a kind of global perpetual motion machine that we are wrecking as global warming melts Arctic ice, releasing huge volumes of freshwater into the stream. This dilutes the hyper-saline currents, eventually shutting them down. If and when it does, Ireland will become Siberia, and weather in mid-Atlantic will change dramatically. Climate scientists predict the slowing of the Gulf Stream will cause more frequent and more intense nor’easters like this year, when we experienced sustained east winds of over 20 knots for days. The windstorms pushed cold Atlantic water into the bay, chilling it and forcing water temperatures lower while also slowing spawning. As the nor’easters passed, strong westerly winds shut down spawning altogether. I fear this pattern will become more apparent in the coming years.

 

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation is weakening and has collapsed in the distant past. From the Guardian

Don’t believe fishery scientists who say that nothing can be done because it is climate change. Actually, the solution is simple: Stop killing horseshoe crabs for bait when both targets, eel and whelk, are in decline. And stop draining and killing crabs for blood when a synthetic alternative is just as effective and competitive in price. The threat of a changing climate to the Delaware Bay ecosystem can be erased with more horseshoe crabs spawning when weather is suitable and building egg resources in the sand to be available during windstorms.

I have tried to recognize the many volunteers who have helped make this project a success for 29 years. We have volunteers like Jay Bolden, Susan Moody, Ren Monte and Peter Fullagar, who come to help us trap and work on birds, we have the many shorebird stewards like Erica Garfickle and Barbara Bennett helping to protect the birds and crabs at places where visitors can view them safely, and we have our beloved cooks like Karla and Julian, Jane and Pete and Fern and Dian and who bring us beautiful home-cooked dinners every night.

However, one group is particularly difficult to recognize because it only emerges at night.  ReTURN the Favor volunteers overturn horseshoe crabs defeated by waves or release them from bulkheads or stone works. One night we returned from dinner and saw dancing lights on the beach in front of our house on Reeds. Volunteers! So, Mandy and I went out to greet them. You can imagine their wariness when encountering two strangers in the dark. I took their picture for this blog, but Abe and Linda Littenberg were suspicious of us, so I didn’t plan to use their photo.  However, I met Abe again with Lenore Tedesco, the director of the Wetlands Institute, at a Citizens United event last Friday, and they gave me the go-ahead. Thank you, Abe, Linda, and all ReTURN the Favor rescuers.

Abe and Linda Littenberg out on Reeds Beach saving horseshoe crabs

I speak for all our teams and volunteers who find pleasure and meaning in helping birds and crabs make it through the gauntlet of stormy weather, crazy tides, impetuous visitors, and the occasional villainous killers by offering thanks for the opportunity to do good in these times of an uncertain future. For all those who wish to do more, please join or contribute to:

Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River Shorebird Cooks

Wetlands Institute ReTURN the Favor program

American Littoral Society Horseshoe Crab Tagging

Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ Shorebird Stewards

NJ Audubon’s Shorebird and Horseshoe Crab Project

Crabs on Reeds Beach, photo by S. Feigin

 

Or lead your group to become a member of the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition and join the fight to stop the wasteful killing of horseshoe crabs

 

This project is only possible because of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Erin Lewis, Scott Hall, and Amanda Bassow. We thank Alex Ireland and NJ Audubon for hosting our project. Thanks to NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife’s Kathy Clark and Bill Pitts for protection and coordination. Thanks to the American Littoral Society, which leads the egg survey with funds from the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife.  The Canadian Wildlife Service provided satellite transmitters as part of a project to outline Arctic breeding areas.

 

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conservationDelaware BayDelaware Bay 2025

by Larry Niles
written by Larry Niles

As our shorebird work reaches a climax, we surveyed what is likely the highest number of birds observed in the Bay for this year.  Our entire team devoted May 23  to counting shorebirds, while Bill Pitts from NJ Fish and Wildlife joined Kat Christie from Delaware Fish and Wildlife to conduct an aerial count.  Stephanie Feigin, Humphrey Sitters, and I conducted a boat count from Fortescue to Bidwell Creek.  We counted 25,614 red knots, 13953 ruddy turnstones, and 16016 sanderlings on the NJ coastline.  The count was within a few hundred birds for each species compared to our last count, suggesting that most birds that came early stayed.

We made several catches in this period, showing birds gaining weight and getting close to the goal weight of 180 grams as seen in the chart below.  It also shows a smaller group of late-arriving knots, some weighing less than 100 grams.  The fat-free weight of red knots is 125 grams, so these birds burned muscle to reach Delaware Bay.

The progress towards that goal weight slowed this week because the horseshoe crab spawn virtually shut down during a 4-day windstorm from the west.  West winds blow a long way across the bay, creating big short-duration waves that overturn spawning crabs when they break on the NJ bayshore.  The concurrent cold snap that brought nighttime temperatures to near the lower threshold for spawning also stopped crabs from spawning.  The birds bore the brunt of the lack of crabs, as seen in the second chart, which shows the average weights of our canon net catches.  Our previous catches of red knots and Turnstones showed above-average progress, but our latest showed knots barely gaining weight, while ruddy turnstone weight decreased a bit.   We can’t control the weather to make this better,  but killing fewer crabs for thier valuable blood despite a readily available synthetic and the senseless use of crabs as bait to catch depleted whelk and eel populations would increase the numbers of crabs spawning so even a cold snap wouldn’t deprive the birds of eggs.

Red knot weights by weight category. The goal of our project is to help birds reach the weight necessary for a productive and safe flight to the Arctic. Chart by S. Feigin

 

This busy graph plots the average weights of all the catches made since 1997. The 2025 average catch weights showed above-average weights, but our last catch showed slowed progress. 

 

Ruddy Turnstone weight in our third catch actually decreased as new birds arrived and existing birds couldnt find enough eggs.Chart by S. Feigin

 

These bay-wide surveys remind us of something we tend to forget. Six shorebird species come to the bay to gain weight before moving on to their next stop, Hudson Bay’s little brother, James Bay. Some species arrive early, like short-billed dowitchers, least sandpipers, and dunlin. Others, such as sanderlings, semipalmated sandpipers, ruddy turnstones, and red knots, come a bit later, more closely tuned to the horseshoe crab spawn. Each species has varying migration distances, so they arrive at different times depending on when they start moving north and how often they stop along the way. For the red knot, we know a lot more about its wintering areas because we have been studying it intensively for decades, and now, with satellite transmitters, we understand much about their moment-to-moment movements.

 

Shortbilled Dowitchers, dunlin, semipalmated sandpipers on a sod bank near Egg Island.

 

But for the most part, we know much less about the other species, and it has hurt them.  Take sanderlings, for example.  They winter as far north as NJ and as far south as Argentina. They are the ubiquitous sandpiper written about by so many authors, because they occur throughout the East Coast. They are also abundant, with estimates of more than 300,000 on the East Coast. When agencies consider protection or research, the sanderling is often a low priority.

But here is the thing. Sanderlings, like nearly all the species, have as complicated a migration as red knots.  They winter as far south as Tierra del Fuego and on both South American coasts, with good numbers in Peru and Chile.  When Delaware Bay was overharvested in the 2000s, the focus was on red knots because of their dramatic migration journey, and the long-distance birds from Tierra Del Fuego took the biggest hit, dropping from 65,000 to 10,000 in only a few years. But sanderlings very likely took the same hit, with very little recognition.  Each species has a similar story, because all shorebirds are rapidly declining in numbers. The red knot is a sort of flagship species that can represent all shorebirds.  The people who work to save horseshoe crabs should always remember that Delaware Bay is for all of these species.

A lone sanderling taking advantage of two turnstone fighting as they dig for horseshoe crab eggs

 

Unfortunately, the agencies only focus on the red knot.  Take, for example, the Adaptive Resource Management (ARM) model. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission uses this framework to determine the quota for killing horseshoe crabs, but it only considers the impact on the red knot. They measure the number of knots on the coasts, and if that does not change, they consider their job done.  They know nothing of the other species, and care almost as little. But we on the bay know better. The bay is home to many species, and we are responsible for all of them.

 

This graph show the results of the Canadian maritime shorebird survey conducted every year. It shows nearly all shorebird species declining including all of the species coming through delaware bay. Graph by Paul Smith

 

Members of Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River ( CU) continued to serve our team dinners each night of our campaign. The cooks are gracious and supportive of our work, providing the team with both emotional and gastronomic support.   Jane and Pete Galetto, Ferne Detweiler, cooked a delicious turkey dinner in honor of our many members from other countries.  Sharry Masarek and her husband, Paul, provided freshly made desserts that our team devoured like red knots on a pile of eggs.  We missed Ferne’s partner Dian Shivers, who passed recently.   Both have come to feed our voracious crew for years, and Dian would often describe the lost culture of hardscrabble bayshore communities when fish and shellfish were abundant. We appreciated Ferne coming this year despite her loss.

 

 

2024 Thanksgiving Dinner with Jane Peter Galetto, Wendy and Dian and Fern  Photo by Gwen Binsfeld

 

During our frequent bay recces, we meet Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ shorebird stewards who help visitors understand the reason for the beach access restriction and educate them along the way.   Speaking for the birds, crabs and our team we thank you.

 

Shorebird Steward Dom Manolo

Shorebird Stewards ( and professors ) Jenny Issacs and Tina Carnacchio.

Shorebird stewards Sheryl and Dan Alexander

 

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Delaware BayDelaware Bay 2025

Shoals and Stewards – Delaware Bay Shorebird and Horseshoe Crab Project Report 5.19.25

by Larry Niles
written by Larry Niles

At this early stage of the stopover, it’s hard to explain what will be clearer at the end. Stephanie Feigin, Humphrey Sitters, and I counted 26,000 red knots on May 17 between Norburys Landing and Reeds Beach South, a record for this section of the bay and this early in the season.  So, we ask why? Has the number of knots gone up? It is a very unlikely possibility, given that the counts done elsewhere in the flyway remain unchanged. Yet we would all welcome that change; many of us have been waiting for 20 years for it. We would all breathe a sigh of relief. But it’s not likely.

 

6000 Knots roost at Pierces Point outer beach on 5.20.25

It could be that the birds feel safe on NJ Beach because we have a dedicated group of volunteers organized by Larissa Smith of Conserve Wildlife Foundation.  I think this is very important, but the birds would not be here if they had no reason.

 

3000 knots and 1000 ruddy turnstones feed on the beach between Eldridge and Norburys, right up to the barrier constructed by NJ Fish and Wildlife to protect them. This proximity allows for good opportunities for nonthreatening  photography and viewing because the birds feel safe if they can depend on people staying within the barriers of the observation areas.

Larissa Smith with Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ,  leads the volunteers who steward and educate visitors.  She is with Neil Olafson, who is one of the first stewards, helping people since the program’s start in 2005

The most likely reason is the erratic availability of eggs.  To understand this we have to remember the past. What we see now is nothing like the egg densities of the distant past, when eggs were so dense that they formed windrows a foot high on some beaches. In 1991, Mark Botton and Bob Loveland counted 50,000 eggs/m². Millions of shorebirds could depend on the abundance of eggs, and it didn’t matter if the spawning shut down for whatever reason; the beaches were filled with eggs, and shorebirds could rely on them year after year.  See this video from a 1986 movie on shorebirds.

Now we are lucky to get 10,000 eggs/m2, and some beaches have even less. The low densities not only provide less food for the long-distance travelers arriving emaciated from their 10,000-mile flight, but they also create uncertainty. In 2020, we had virtually no eggs because the bay waters turned cold and delayed spawning until after the birds had left. In the succeeding years, the number of knots plummeted to new lows by our count. In other words, the birds’ experience in one year affects the numbers in the next.

 

Susan Linder, who leads our egg survey team, suggested early egg densities as a possible reason for the high red knot count. As you can see from her histograms of egg densities below, last year’s early-season egg spawn was one of the highest in the recent past. This year is the same, although it’s a bit lower. We had no high numbers of knots early in the season last year because birds couldn’t know of the abundance beforehand. But the birds that learned of early eggs returned with bigger flocks.  At this point, we are only guessing, but soon our picture will focus.

The historgram above show the cluster and surface egg densities on NJ Delaware Bay from 2015 to the present. See the big increase at the start of 2024 and 2025

Horseshoe Crab egg densities in 2024 showing how we have an early burst of eggs that diminished in the second week and then a big spawn mid month. The overall egg densities were not much different than the previous 10 years, it just came in a few crucial weeks.

 

Unfortunately, just like last year, egg densities have already started to moderate because of persistent onshore winds. We have suffered three days of wind gusting to 30 knots and waves crashing on shore. Crabs can’t spawn in these conditions on beaches. But our shorebirds are still in luck because of the many shoals on the NJ side of the bay. Unlike the Delaware side of the bay and most estuarine areas on the East Coast, the bayside in NJ remains free of armored inlets. People armor inlets with stone jetties to stop erosion. But the bay’s shoreline, in its natural state, moves constantly, with sand generally moving south to north as incoming tidal currents sweep up the bayshore. Unarmored natural inlets build shoals from this sand. More sand moves to these inlet shoals as beaches naturally erode. This is our bay’s natural state.

 

An aerial photo of the shoals at Cooks Beach, NJ at low tide not long after American Littoral Society and WRP restored  the Beach in 2020.

Shoals and the beaches protected by them have the highest egg densities of all the habitats on the bay. Shoals stop the onshore winds, allowing crabs to spawn even when winds turn foul, so we hope the birds can cope. It’s no accident that we have shoals. As in most of the previous 12 years, the America Littoral Society and Wildlife Restoration Partnerships restored one beach, Thompsons, and using our designs, the NJ DEP restored Baypoint. Over the last decade, we have restored all of the bay’s beaches important to crabs and shorebirds at least once and most twice. We added thousands of tons of sand; it erodes as all beaches do, but the sand is not lost. It builds shoals.

Two days ago, our trapping program felt like a forced march. Freaky bad weather and strong winds off the sea made the birds jumpy, moving around as though they couldn’t predict what would happen next – which they couldn’t. We can’t trap in winds this strong unless we aim off the wind, which limits our choices dramatically.

But yesterday our luck turned, and we were able to make two catches: one of sanderlings with a handful of red knots and ruddy turnstones, then a bigger catch of knots and turnstones. In total, we caught nearly 300 birds, all measured and flagged, and all turnstones were sampled for avian influenza, with feather and blood samples taken from all knots. Stephanie, Joanna Burger and Gwen Binsfeld attached five more satellite transmitters. With all our goals met, we are taking a day of rest.

The NJ Shorebird Team setting a cannon net. In the picture  Jay Bolden, John Bloomfield, Ren Monte,Stephanie Feigin, Humphrey Sitters, Antonio Brum and Gwen Binsfeld.

 

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