Moonbird by Phillip Hoose

B95 (AKA “Moonbird”) is an amazing survivor of the subspecies rufa. He was first tagged in the year 1995, when he was thought to be around three years old. Rufa typically travel around 18,000 miles a year, and B95 has flown over 325,000 miles in his lifetime. He goes between Rio Grande, Delaware Beach, and his breeding grounds in Arctic Canada. B95 has beaten all of the odds; rufa’s numbers have been decreasing a little more each year. This is most likely attributed to humans, B95’s greatest predator. Humans have been destroying the areas where rufa like to stay, and more importantly, humans have been greatly reducing one of the rufa’s most important food sources: horseshoe crabs. Horseshoe crabs contain LAL, a lifesaving element in their blood that prevents them from getting infections. Unfortunately, it’s not just the crabs that find this LAL useful; humans have been finding it useful as well. Despite all of the adversity, B95 has survived. He is the oldest known surviving Red Knot there is. He provides the perfect example of adaptation; he’s survived all of the challenges he has been handed. He has had some help, though, because many scientists (and ordinary people alike) have come together to save the rufa Red Knots.