Than the way in which they can build,

And yet leave a landscape as it was before.”

Robert Lynd

Music: Last of The Mohicans

They are true masters of long distance aviation

As they wing their way almost 20,000 miles a year

They are truly one of Earth’s most remarkable creatures

And for these endangered birds, we should all shed a tear

On their annual migrations between South America

And their summering grounds in the Arctic northland

They must stop to rest and to eat horseshoe crab eggs

In Delaware Bay, located off New Jersey’s coastland

But the once plentiful horseshoe crab is now woefully in decline

Because of massive over fishing, it may never come back again

And many marine biologists on the eastern seaboard now predict

That the once abundant Red Knot may be extinct as early as 2010

Yet another nonhuman earth resident,

That is truly in dire jeopardy today;

And I sadly wonder how many more,

For our modern human greed – will pay

The Red Knot is the largest of the sandpipers in North America, and one of the most colorful.  And it makes one of the longest yearly migrations of any bird, traveling from its Arctic breeding grounds to Tierra del Fuego in southern South America.

These Red Knots concentrate in huge numbers at traditional staging grounds during their annual migrations, and Delaware Bay is an extremely important area for them since these birds have fed on the eggs of spawning horseshoe crabs here for countless centuries.

It is estimated that nearly 90 percent of the entire Red Knot population can be present on the bay in a single day, and both a drastic reduction in food available to them and water pollution, are responsible for a drastic decline in Red Knot numbers today.

These birds "have gone from an undeniably majestic display of nature to a tragic remnant," says the head of the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection's Endangered and Nongame Species Program.

Once, over 100,000 Red Knots flocked to Delaware Bay each and every Spring.  Last year, the count was only about 12,000.

And many predict that this coming Spring, it will be far less.

If this magnificent winged creature soon does become extinct, the Red Knot will very sadly join the Carrier Pigeon and 10 other U.S. bird species that have already tragically vanished from the face of the Earth since John James Audubon first painted North America’s majestic birds in the 1800s.

©2008, Mr. Ed