How ‘bird police’ are saving America’s red knots

Dramatically reduces number of intruders to protected area

January 2012: Bird stewards - the people policing protected beaches and educate the public about the birds who inhabit it - greatly increase the effectiveness of protected beaches, a new American study has found.

‘During 28 four-hour surveys, we observed nearly nine times more intruders into protected areas when there was no bird steward, compared to when a steward was present,' says Beth Forys, professor of environmental science and biology at Eckerd College in St Petersburg, Florida, who completed the survey in a report to the National Fish & Wildlife Federation. 

Red knots need enough energy for long migrationHuman activity greatly disturbs migratory and overwintering shorebirds, such as the red knot, a robin-sized shorebird whose numbers have significantly declined in the past decade.

‘While most red knots migrate from breeding grounds in the Arctic to wintering grounds at the tip of South America, a small portion of the population overwinters in Florida,' Forys explains.

‘To make the trip to the Arctic to breed, red knots must have enough energy, and over-harvesting of their prey combined with disturbance may be impeding their ability to gain enough weight to make the long trip.'

To better understand what management measures could help red knots in their Florida wintering grounds, Forys conducted the study to see if the endangered bird would be able to forage and rest more if a portion of the beach were protected.

Frequency and sources of disturbance to red knots were determined both for a year-round, symbolically-fenced, ‘protected area' on a county park beach and for three municipal beaches without fenced-off protected areas for shorebirds. Differences between rates of human-related disturbances per hour of observation within the fenced-off protected area versus the unprotected beaches were statistically significant.

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/red-knot.html