American Littoral Society - Northeast Chapter

08/24/2026

Read all about the Jamaica Bay Shorebird Festival which was held earlier this month, in this edition of The Wave.

Over 250 people attended the 21st Annual Shorebird Festival at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge last Sunday. While we think it's still summer, the shorebirds have started their fall migration along the... You've reached your free story limit. Please login or purchase a subscription to view this story...

08/21/2026

Over 250 people attended the 21st Annual Shorebird Festival at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge last Sunday. While we think it's still summer, the shorebirds have started their fall migration along the coast. About 30 species of shorebirds routinely stop by Jamaica Bay and Rockaway Beach during their long trek southward, some even going to South America for the winter. Several species such as killdeer, American oystercatcher, and the Federally Threatened piping plover nest on the dunes and beaches of Rockaway. The event started 21 years ago by the American Littoral Society now includes many groups including JBRPC, NYC Bird Alliance, The Plover Project, Wild City, and the National Park Service. (Photos by Don Riepe).

08/15/2026

TOMORROW IS THE DAY! (Sunday the 16th). Join us and our partners for the Annual Shorebird Festival. August is the perfect time to explore the diversity of New York City’s shorebirds! Festival attendees will have the opportunity to spot and learn about the scores of shorebird species and their natural habitat of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, filled with marshland, fresh and brackish water ponds, and grassy fields.

This festival is kid-friendly and can be enjoyed by the whole family. 10am-2pm.

Find more information here: https://www.littoralsociety.org/jamaica-bay-shorebird-festival-2026.html

08/12/2026

For the past 36 years, the Society's Don Riepe has been managing osprey nest platforms and monitoring breeding success in Jamaica Bay, from no nesting ospreys in the bay area in 1990 to 25 nesting pairs. However, the osprey are once again threatened, this time by the overharvesting of menhaden. To read more, see the article linked in the comments.

08/09/2026

Join us and our partners for the Annual Shorebird Festival on Sunday, August 16th. August is the perfect time to explore the diversity of New York City’s shorebirds! Festival attendees will have the opportunity to spot and learn about the scores of shorebird species and their natural habitat of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, filled with marshland, fresh and brackish water ponds, and grassy fields.

This festival is kid-friendly and can be enjoyed by the whole family. 10am-2pm.

Find more information here: https://www.littoralsociety.org/jamaica-bay-shorebird-festival-2026.html

08/03/2026

The New York Groove interviewed our own Don Riepe about his years of work protecting the waters of Jamaica Bay, including some pretty wild stories! Read more in the article linked in the comments.

07/28/2026

Join us and our partners for the 20th Annual Shorebird Festival on August 16th, 10am-2pm. This is the perfect time to explore the diversity of New York City’s shorebirds! Festival attendees will have the opportunity to spot and learn about the scores of shorebird species and their natural habitat of the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, filled with marshland, fresh and brackish water ponds, and grassy fields.

Meet at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge in Broad Channel, Queens, NYC. Visit the east and west ponds to view shorebirds as they migrate southward. Free. Kids welcome. For more information, see link in the comments.

07/21/2026

The Littoral Society has been coordinating and hosting volunteer beach cleanups on New York’s shorelines and beaches since 1986! Which means that this year we are celebrating the 40th Anniversary of our beach cleanup program. Read more on our blog, linked in the comments.

07/17/2026

The American Littoral Society loves summer on the shore!

Read the latest edition of Field Notes, our monthly newsletter. Link in the comments.

What have we been up to? We gathered at Sandy Hook for a special Members Day honoring Tim Dillingham and his remarkable 23 years of leadership protecting the coast, wildlife, and waters in our region. Thank you to everyone that helped honor Tim and his many accomplishments for the coast.

We also collected important data at Kimbles Beach to guide future restoration, wrapped up another busy horseshoe crab tagging season along Delaware Bay and the Shark River, and continued pushing for cleaner and safer waters in the Delaware River. This month, we are celebrating 40 years of New York Beach Cleanups!

All of this work is made possible by the people who join us to tag horseshoe crabs under the moonlight, lead beach cleanups, attend shorebird walks, support our on-the-ground work through generous gifts, and are as passionate about conserving the coast for the future as we are.

There is still so much summer ahead. We hope you will join us for a sunset seining program, a coastal shorebird walk, a fish tagging trip, or simply a chance to spend time together near the water.

Thank you for being part of the American Littoral Society and for helping us protect, restore, and celebrate the coast.

See you on the shore!

07/08/2026

What a find! What a journey! This Horseshoe crab was tagged by the Littoral Society in Shark River, NJ 5 years ago and took a long 30 mile swim to be found by a volunteer in New York at Big Egg marsh in Broad Channel (also known as the Sunset Cove Park area).

Thank you to volunteer Ana Fangayen for spotting the crab and reporting the record to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who then sends these awesome pins and certificates out to reported tagged crab recoveries.

Horseshoe crab surveys in NY are coordinated by the NYC Bird Alliance in partnership with the greater NY Horseshoe crab monitoring network, which is a partnership with: the Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Marine program, Stony Brook University and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. The partnership advances coordination of volunteers to collect scientific data that will be used to assess the status of horseshoe crabs in NY State and help determine management and conservation of this important species throughout the region.

In NJ, the American Littoral Society has coordinated Horseshoe crab spawning surveys on the Delaware Bayshore since 2014.