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KNOTS
AND HORSESHOES
: by Tom Ennis,
14th October, 2009
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account of the breeding cycle of the Horseshoe Crab (Limulus
polyphemus) in
Delaware Bay
as experienced at
Cape May Point,
New Jersey,
USA
and how it affects the migration of Nearctic breeding
shorebirds and other species. In recent years fishing of the
Horseshoe Crabs for use as bait (the creatures are useless as
a human foodstuff) has depleted Crab numbers seriously. This
has, in turn, had a detrimental effect on the hundreds of
thousands of migrating Sandpipers and Plovers which have, over
countless millennia, depended on the availability of the
valuable and highly nutritious food source in the Crab eggs,
at this critical point in their Spring migration. The species
on which this threat has had the most drastic affect is the
Red Knot (Calidris canutus). |
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Migrant
Red Knots at Cape May Point, NJ |
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| Formerly
high-tide beaches on the
Delaware Bay
coast of
New Jersey
, in May, were so tightly packed with roosting Knots that they
looked solid red. The speaker told of witnessing this
astonishing sight on his first visit to Cape May Point in May
1969, when fishing Horseshoe Crabs was unknown, and how,
having heard of the threat, he had gone back in 2005 to
photograph the Red Knots before it was too late. |
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numbers of Red Knots had fallen to an even greater extent than he
feared and although he managed to get pictures of the Knots in their
beautiful breeding plumage the largest number he encountered was
twelve together. Tom also showed pictures of other bird
species, both migrant and local residents at Cape May Point. |
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Some
like the Piping Plover (Charadrius
melodus) had been common birds on the beaches and sand dunes
back in 1969 but today were strictly protected due to habitat
disturbance. Also illustrated were two elegant egrets, the Snowy
Egret (Egretta thula) and
the Great Egret (Ardea alba),
which had been almost exterminated in the late 19th and
early 20th Centuries because of the desirability of their
beautiful breeding plumes for the millinery trade. Equally appalling
carnage was going on in
Europe
with allied species at this time. Emerging from this slaughter were
conservation movements which resulted in the formation of the two
most important wildlife protection societies of today’s world: the
National Audubon Society in
USA
and back home our own Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
In
conclusion he said that only very recently had the plight of the
Horseshoe Crab in
Delaware Bay
been realized and that a moratorium on fishing the crabs had been
introduced in 2008. Whether it was in time has yet to be shown.
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