The number of red knot shorebirds migrating last spring to their breeding grounds in Arctic Canada via Delaware Bay beaches rose to its highest since 2019. About 22,000 of the bird’s rufa subspecies were counted at protected sites such as Reeds Beach and Pierce’s Point Beach, both in Cape May County, much higher than a record-low 6,880 in 2021.

The red knot, which the federal government listed as threatened in 2015, is dependent on the eggs of the equally stressed horseshoe crab, whose own population crash is largely attributed to over-harvesting. A gathering of pharmaceutical company officials in Reeds Beach this week is giving hope to conservationists that one reason for harvesting horseshoe crabs — to use their blood in tests for endotoxins — may soon no longer exist.