Two Migrations Threatened:

Saving Shorebirds and Horseshoe Crabs

For over 300 million years, helmet-shaped, spear-tailed horseshoe crabs have crawled onto Atlantic seaboard beaches. The beaches of Delaware Bay make up the epicenter of this yearly migration that peaks on the full moon in May. Migrating shorebirds have evolved to time their migrations so that after flying from South America, they arrive at Delaware Bay at the same time as the horseshoe crabs are laying billions of tiny green eggs. Gorging on them like a marathon runner feasts on pasta before the big race, the emaciated shorebirds will often double their body weight before continuing the long flight to their Arctic breeding grounds.

But in recent years, both the migrations of the horseshoe crabs and the shorebirds have been threatened by overfishing. In the 1990s, horseshoe crabs became extremely valuable for use as bait in eel and conch fisheries and the number of crabs killed for bait sharply increased.

The National Audubon Society has been working to halt this overfishing and achieve sustainable management practices to protect the horseshoe crabs and the migratory shorebirds since 1997. While we have come a long way, more still needs to be done to ensure that migratory shorebirds will continue to find sustenance at this key point in the Atlantic flyway.

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