[mou] MRVAC: Sex and Gluttony on Delaware Bay this Thursday

[Steve Weston]

Please join us this Thursday (May 26, 2005) for the Minnesota River Valley Audubon Chapter (MRVAC) meeting at the Minnesota
Valley Nat’l Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center 3815 American Blvd East(80th Steet), Bloomington.  Take the 34th Avenue exit
from I-494 and follow the signs.

Bruce Luebke, of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, will describe on-going Red Knot studies on the Bay, the Arctic, and in
South America, which indicate that the Knot is in  significant decline.  The spring migration of shorebirds on the Delaware
Bay is truly a magnificent wildlife spectacle – and one of the most imperiled.  The Bay’s beaches are essential spawning
habitat for the world’s largest concentration of horseshoe crab.  The beaches also attract the Western Hemisphere’s
second-largest spring concentration of shorebirds, which come to feed on the crabs eggs.  Recent studies show declines in
these shorebird populations, especially the Red Knot, which are likely due to the over-harvest of horseshoe crabs.

The public is welcome.  We encourage you to come for the social period with coffee, cookies, ice breakers and committee
exhibits beginning at 7:00 p.m., followed by a brief business meeting and the featured speakers at 7:30.

Steve Weston
MRVAC Program Chair
sweston2@comcast.net