Red knots making one of the world's great migrations depend critically on horseshoe crab eggs at Delaware Bay, with welfare directly tied to crab harvesting regulations.
Red knots arriving at Delaware Bay in poor condition face starvation if horseshoe crab egg density is insufficient for the rapid fattening they require. Underweight birds attempting transoceanic flight to Arctic breeding grounds face exhaustion and death at sea or reproductive failure from arriving in poor condition. The welfare of millions of individual birds depends directly on the management of horseshoe crab populations. The intimate dependency between migrant welfare and prey availability makes Delaware Bay's ecological health a fundamental welfare concern.