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Defenders in Action: Red Knot Population Continues to Fall
Red knots numbers have plummeted dramatically, according to a new assessment by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), prompting Defenders and other conservation groups to demand that the agency review its earlier decision not to protect the migratory shorebirds under the Endangered Species Act.
The government agency’s assessment confirms and supplements the data that was provided in earlier listing petitions and shows that the bird’s risk of extinction is high.
“The agency no longer has an excuse not to list it,” says Caroline Kennedy, Defenders’ senior director for field conservation. “With such clear evidence at hand, it seems likely that the agency’s decision not to offer federal protection to the red knot is based on politics, not science.”
The report identifies the red knot’s main threat as the reduced availability of horseshoe crab eggs in Delaware Bay because of overharvesting of adult crabs for bait for eel and conch fisheries. Red knots rely on horseshoe crab eggs found only in large numbers at Delaware Bay to gain the weight they need to complete the final leg of their migration to breeding grounds in the Arctic. But since the 1990s, overharvesting of the crabs has caused the egg supply to drop drastically. Counts of red knots in Delaware Bay have followed suit, declining from a high of more than 100,000 birds in the 1980s to fewer than 13,000 today.
Last fall, FWS declined to protect the species despite two petitions from Defenders and other conservation groups seeking federal protection for the bird.
Defenders and our partners are currently in litigation over that decision.
“Unless the Fish and Wildlife Service acts now to provide meaningful protections for the red knots and their habitat, we could be the last generation to experience the migration of red knots through Delaware Bay,” says Kennedy.
The Bush administration has added fewer species to the endangered list than any other administration since the act was initiated. To date, the administration has protected just 58 species compared to 512 under the Clinton administration and 213 under the administration of George H.W. Bush.
