Introducing Bird Friendly Colombia Coffee

This is not your usual coffee experience. Bird Friendly Colombia is a truly unique cup. It is light-medium roasted, features a medium body, and has tasting notes of a very dark chocolate (think 80-90%) and Port wine. It is sweet, slightly tart, and has a cherry-like acidity. We hope you join us in supporting this internationally recognized coffee producer and enjoy this high-quality specialty coffee.

Hacienda Cafetera La Pradera

About the Farm:

Finca La Pradera is a family-owned and operated farm in Aratoca, Santander Colombia, created in 1971. Today, four generations of the Daza Bautista family are directly involved in producing, processing, and exporting specialty coffee. In the early 1970's Mr. Héctor Daza began the transformation of the family farm into a coffee paradise by planting diverse timber and fruit trees, creating a beautiful shade canopy for the different varieties of coffee he planted. Oscar Daza, third generation, now assumes leadership of La Pradera. Driven by a deep respect for nature and community, the farm became one of the first in the region to adopt certified organic practices.

Over the years, the family has invested in biodiversity, water conservation, and soil health while embracing innovation in fermentation and processing. They are a company with social and environmental responsibility, with coffee defined as organic, of origin, cultivated under shade, and in balance with the ecosystem. Guided by strong family values, they are passionate about their community and the environment, and pride themselves on extraordinary, innovative, organic specialty coffee.

Region:

Santander is a fascinating coffee-producing region. Santander's Andes mountains are where some of the first coffee farms in Colombia were established, and the Department's agricultural history is intertwined with the history of coffee. Fresh water sources and rich soil continue to make the region suited for coffee farming today, with shade trees and forests incorporated on most farms. Finca La Pradera is near the Chicamocha Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world. The canyon creates a unique and favorable microclimate for coffee production, with warm air currents during the day and cool breezes and rainfall at night.

A Special Congratulations:

Finca La Pradera won the Outstanding Bird Friendly Producer award during this year's first annual Smithsonian Bird Friendly Awards. We are very excited to be able to share this excellent coffee with you and support their Bird Friendly program.

Thank you to Finca La Pradera for allowing us to share a selection of photos from their farm.

The Horsehoe Crab & The Red Knot

Limulus polyphemus • Horseshoe Crab:

Despite being called crabs, Horseshoe crabs are arthropods, making their closest living relatives spiders and scorpions. Horseshoe crabs evolved 450 million years ago, predating dinosaurs, birds, mammals, and flowering plants. Horseshoe crabs survived the extinction event that wiped dinosaurs from the planet 66 million years ago, and only four species survive today; one found in the Atlantic coastal waters of North America and the Gulf of Mexico, and three found in Asia's coastal waters. Horseshoe crabs mature slowly, molting their exoskeleton as they grow. They reach adulthood around 10 years of age, and can live for more than 20 years. Horseshoe crabs have not evolved much in the past 200 million years, so they are often called "living fossils."

Every spring, horseshoe crabs migrate from deeper waters on the continental shelf to the shores of the Atlantic coast to breed. Delaware Bay has prime spawning beaches along the Delaware and New Jersey shores (remember that it's crucial for a unique relationship), and prime spawning habitat can also be found throughout the Chesapeake Bay, including some tributaries. Peak horseshoe crab spawning is aligned with the new and full moons from May through June; this is the period when the sun and moon are aligned and "spring tides" occur (highest high tides and lowest low tides). The males wait for the females along the surfline and then use a specially developed appendage to "clasp" themselves onto the back of the female. During peak spawning times, the horseshoes will form dense "huddles" along the water's edge, with 5 or 6 males grouped around one female. After spawning, the females dig nests in the sand and bury a cluster of about 4,000 tiny, blue-green eggs. She will do this several times, producing about 90,000 eggs per year. Most are unfertilized or will not survive to become juveniles. The depth of the eggs determines the probability of survival of the young. By laying their eggs at times of extra high tides, they can hide their eggs from underwater predators. The deeper eggs have a greater chance of survival. The shoalwater and shallow water areas of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays are also essential nursery areas. Juveniles usually spend their first two years on these intertidal sand flats.

Fun Fact: A horseshoe crab's pointed tail is not for self-defense. Horseshoe crabs are easily jostled by ocean currents and waves, and by each other. When a crab gets stuck upside-down, it uses its tail, called a telson, to flip over! Horseshoe crabs can also use their telson as a rudder to help steer as they swim upside down.

Photo Credit: Brian Evans, SMBC’s Bird Observatory

People have been using Horseshoe crabs for a long time. Evidence shows that Native Americans used their shells in tools for farming and spears for fishing. They also passed their use of the crabs to Europeans, who began using them as fertilizer for their crops. By 1870, over a million horseshoe crabs were being harvested from Delaware Bay. One hundred years later, in 1970, synthetic fertilizers were created, and the horseshoe crab harvest declined. But by the 1990s, commercial fisheries began the bait harvest for the crabs at an unprecedented rate. With little regulation in place, horseshoe crab populations along the Atlantic coast were decimated.

Horseshoe crab blood is uniquely sensitive to bacteria. When it comes in contact with a pathogen, it solidifies and forms a clot, preventing it from spreading through the crab's bloodstream. Because their blood reacts this way, the biomedical industry developed a method to extract 30% of their blood and separate the clotting agent called limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL). LAL aids in the detection of human pathogens in patients, drugs, and intravenous devices, and is valued at $15,000 a quart. The effects of this bleeding are a cause for concern. The biomedical industry self-reports mortality rates of 15%, but experts estimate the number is much higher. Research also shows that bled crabs released back into the wild display disoriented patterns of movement and engage in less reproductive behavior. Up to one million horseshoe crabs per year are extracted from the Mid-Atlantic shores for use in the biomedical industry, putting further strain on the depleting population.

As a result of pressure from scientists and conservationists, several attempts have been made to regulate the harvesting, including harvest quotas, yearly stock assessments, and establishing a limited male-only harvesting to help restore crab populations. Unfortunately, the numbers do not show a sign of improvement and remain at one-third of the population before the overharvest of the 1990s.

Calidris canutus • Red Knot:

The Red Knot is a migratory shorebird in the sandpiper family. They occur on all continents except Antarctica and migrate exceptionally long distances, from High Arctic nesting areas to wintering spots in southern South America. Migrating and wintering knots use marine habitats like sandy beaches, salt marshes, lagoons, mudflats of estuaries and bays, and mangrove swamps that contain an abundance of invertebrate prey.

Mollusks make up a large portion of the Red Knot's diet, and when they eat them, they swallow the shells whole and crush them up in the muscular part of their stomach, known as the gizzard. Recent studies indicate that knots have the largest gizzards, relative to body mass, of any shorebird.

Fun Fact: The oldest recorded Red Knot was at least 18 years, 11 months old. It was banded in 1999 in Delaware and recaptured and re-released during banding operations there in 2016.

The Red knot subspecies rufa is the Red knot that uses Delaware Bay and other Mid-Atlantic shorelines as a stopover point during migration. (Remember we mentioned Delaware Bay before?) Almost 90 percent of the entire population can be present on Delaware Bay at the same time. According to maps generated from eBird observations, Red knots have been observed on the coastlines of Colombia during migration.

The Unique Relationship:

Horseshoe crabs are crucial to shorebirds during migration. Red knots travel from the bottom of South America to the Arctic Circle, and they need to stop along the way to refuel. One of these stopover sites is Delaware Bay. Evolutionarily, Red knots have timed their migration with that of the Horseshoe crabs, and arrive at Delaware Bay at the same time that the Horseshoe crabs come onto the beach to lay eggs. When they arrive in Delaware Bay, they've gone through their fat reserves and need the fat and protein in the Horseshoe crab eggs to recover and build up enough reserves for the remainder of their journey.

If the horseshoe crab population continues to decline, the Red knots will be negatively impacted. All three subspecies of Red Knot found in North America are in decline. The populations wintering in South America dropped by more than 50% from the mid-1980s to 2003, and the rufa subspecies has declined by more than 70% since the 1980s and is listed as federally threatened in the United States.

To protect shorebird populations, we need to do everything we can to support horseshoe crabs. A major effort is underway to get the horseshoe crab placed on the endangered species list, and organizations like Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition are leading the way. They are a science based campaign that aims to stem years of decline in Horseshoe crab populations and fully restore them by 2030.

We want to give special thanks to our friends and partners at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center's Bird Observatory. We are grateful for their research and support in helping us to bring forth this conservation need in our region.

We also want to thank the Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition for their hard work and dedication to protecting the Horseshoe crab. They have a plethora of resources available so you can learn more about the Horseshoe crab and Red knot and how to help with their conservation efforts. Visit Horseshoe Crab Recovery Coalition