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In our third trip to Tierra Del Fuego, we will continue assessing the status of wintering red knots with a international team of biologists from Chile, Argentina, US, Canada, and Australia. We do this to accomplish two major conservation goals. The first goal is to help focus attention on the important concentration areas for wintering birds like Bahia Lomas in Chile, Bahia San Sebastion in Argentina, and the Atlantic Coast beach of Rio Grande in Argentina. Our second goal is to determine the population numbers and the age ratio of the wintering flocks in Bahia Lomas, which accounts for a majority of this hemisphere's population of red knots. Knots breed in the Canadian Arctic, fly along the North and South American coasts, nearly 10,000 miles, arriving in Bahia Lomas in November. When they return they must make a long flight from Brazil to the Delaware Bay before making the final leg of the flight to the Arctic. On the Delaware Bay they recharge fat reserves on the abundant eggs of the horseshoe crab. Without the bay's crabs, nearly the entire population of Red knots in this flyway will fail to breed. Our work in Tierra Del Fuego is part of our the Division's program to monitor the health of the population.

Our team includes experience shorebird biologists from all over the western hemisphere.

  • Larry Niles, Endangered and Nongame Species Program, NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife
  • Amanda Dey, Endangered and Nongame Species Program, NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife
  • Sharon DeFalco, Endangered and Nongame Species Program, NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife
  • Alexandra Aparicio, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile
  • Olivia Blank, Instituto de Investigacion Agropecuaria, Punta Arenas, Chile
  • Luis Espinoza, UNORCH (Chilean Ornithologists Union, Puerto Varas, Chile
  • Steven Gates, Greenwich Ecological Research
  • Jorge Jordan, Hotel Jose Nogueira, Punta Arenas, Chile
  • Ricardo Matus, Shorebird biologist, Punta Arenas, Chile
  • Clive Minton, Australasian Wader Studies Group, Melbourne, Australia
  • Guy Morrison, Canadian Fish and Wildlife Service
  • Mark Peck, Royal Ontario Museum, Center for Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
  • Ana Maria Roa, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile
  • Richard Ross, Canadian Wildlife Service, Ontario
  • Brad Winn, Nongame Program, Georgia Division of Fish and Wildlife

This project would not have been possible without the financial support of the Wildlife Conservatoin Society, in particular Bill Weber's North America Program, Lisa Garrison and the Dodge Foundation, the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Delaware Bay/Cheasapeake Bay Ecosystem Team, specifically Steve Atzert, and Cliff Day's US Fish and Wildlife NJ Field Office. Finally, we are indebted to Linda Tesauro and the Conserve Wildlife Foundation and the citizens of NJ that checked off for wildlife on their state income tax, or bought a Conserve Wildlife license plate.