Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey will recognize two exceptional women when it presents the fourth annual 2009 Women & Wildlife Awards to Dr. Amanda Dey of the state’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program, and Jane Morton Galetto, president of Citizens United to Protect the Maurice River and its Tributaries. Conserve Wildlife Foundation is honoring the dedication and achievement of Dr. Dey and Ms. Galetto as women who are working to protect wildlife in New Jersey.
Conserve Wildlife Foundation will present these awards during the 2009 Women & Wildlife Awards on March 22, 2 to 5 p.m., at the Prallsville Mills in Stockton, New Jersey. The awards reception, which coincides with National Women’s History Month each year, recognizes the accomplishments and advances by women who demonstrate leadership and inspire those around them to protect wildlife and their habitats.
Tickets to the 2009 Women & Wildlife Awards reception are $50 per person and all proceeds will help advance wildlife conservation in New Jersey.
Dr. Amanda Dey, of Bordentown, is the 2009 recipient of the Women & Wildlife Leadership Award. She started as a secretary and rose through the ranks of the Endangered and Nongame Species Program to become Principal Zoologist. Dr. Dey’s research has contributed to management of songbird habitat in New Jersey and is a model for other states. She has been instrumental in leading the international effort to protect migratory shorebirds, including the Red Knot, which is in danger of becoming extinct. For more than 10 years, Dr. Dey and other scientists documented declining Red Knot populations and identified the cause: impacts to food sources crucial to their ancient migratory journey. Red Knots arrive on Delaware Bay shorelines just after horseshoe crabs lay their eggs on the beaches there. But that vital food supply has become depleted over the years, depriving the Red Knots of the nutrition and energy they need to complete the long journey to their breeding areas.
Dr. Dey provided her research and expertise on the plight of the Red Knot to wildlife advocates in New Jersey and Delaware and made the case for protecting the shoreline feeding areas to legislatures in both states. She appeared in a PBS Nature documentary that brought the dire situation to life for a national television audience. Her efforts culminated in March 2008 when Gov. Jon Corzine signed into law a moratorium on the bait harvest of horseshoe crabs in New Jersey.
“Conserve Wildlife Foundation is very pleased to honor Amanda Dey for her outstanding leadership and her dedication to endangered wildlife in New Jersey and throughout the hemisphere,” said Margaret O’Gorman, Executive Director of Conserve Wildlife Foundation. “Her achievement has greatly improved the prospects of a critically endangered species while showing how impacts from human activity can affect those with whom we share existence.”

