The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed listing the rufa red knot (Calidris canutus rufa) as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
The rufa red knot is an extraordinary bird that each year migrates thousands of miles from the Arctic to the tip of South America and back, but – like many shorebirds – it is vulnerable to climate and other environmental changes,. In some areas, knot populations have declined by about 75 percent since the 1980s, with the steepest declines happening after 2000.
Service biologists determined that the knot meets the definition of threatened, meaning it is likely to become in danger of extinction in the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range. The knot uses spring and fall stopover areas along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Changing climate conditions are already affecting the bird’s food supply, the timing of its migration, and its breeding habitat in the Arctic.
A primary factor in the recent decline of the species was reduced food supplies in Delaware Bay due to commercial harvest of horseshoe crabs. In 2012, the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission adopted a management plan that explicitly ties horseshoe crab harvest levels along the Atlantic Coast to knot recovery targets.
Audubon has listed the red knot as one of 83 priority species that are the targets of it conservation strategies.
The PBS Nature episode Crash: A Tale of Two Species explores the fragile connection between horseshoe crabs and red knots. Watch it online at goo.gl/LvkKS9.
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