What is a Red Knot?

When the Red Knots FHC was established, we wanted our name to represent something unique to our area.  After considering many names we opted to name the club the Red Knots.  If you have spent time on the beaches of the Jersey shore, particularly the Delaware Bay area, you are familiar with the small reddish birds that populate our area feasting on the over abundance of horseshoe crab eggs that are prevalent from May-June every year.  

What makes a red knot so special?   The red knot has one of the longest migrations of any bird. Every year it travels more than 9,000 miles from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America and repeats the trip in reverse.   As one of the “longest-distance migrants in the animal kingdom,” the red knot relies heavily on the same stopping sites each year along their migratory routes to refuel their bodies for completing their migrations to and from breeding sites.   

Sadly, since 2014, Red Knots are considered a federally threatened species.  Despite massive conservation efforts in New Jersey, Red Knots are at their lowest numbers in 40 years.  Red Knot migration to the Delaware Bay area has dropped from around 90,000 in the early 1980s to just under 7,000 today.