Larry Niles will present his program, “Life Along the Delaware Bay – Cape May Gateway to a Million Shorebirds,” at the Monmouth County Audubon Society meeting on Dec. 11 at 8 p.m. The meeting will be held at the Church of the Nativity, Ridge Road, Fair Haven. The public is welcome; admission is free.
According to a press release, the Delaware Bay is the second largest and most diverse bay on the East Coast. It has a rich cultural history, has played an important role in the region’s commerce and tourism, and has spectacular and vital natural resources.
Bird watchers gather along its shores to watch the spectacle of thousands of spawning horseshoe crabs, the dense flocks of migrant shorebirds, the fall hawk migration, and the huge migration of monarch butterflies.
“Life Along the Delaware Bay” focuses on the area as an ecosystem, the horseshoe crab as a keystone species within that system, and the crucial role the bay plays in the migratory ecology of shorebirds.
An abundance of horseshoe crabs spawning on the Delaware Bay beaches results in an abundance of eggs brought to the surface, providing a source of highquality food and bringing hundreds of thousands of shorebirds to the bay to forage in late May and early June.
A dramatic decline in horseshoe crabs has resulted in a rapid and dramatic decline in birds, particularly the Red Knot, according to the press release. This decline has sounded an alarm throughout the world, prompting a host of biologists to converge on the bay each spring to understand the biology and conservation of red knots and other shorebirds.
The majority of Niles’ 25-year career was spent working for the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife, first as a biologist and then as chief of the Endangered and Nongame Species Program.
In 2006, Niles retired and started his own company to pursue independent research and management projects on shorebird ecology and conservation and habitat conservation through planning and restoration.
Further information can be obtained by visiting http://www.monmouthaudubon.org.