A loss of habitat and human disturbance have led to a diminished piping plover population.
By Jenell Talley
As families have enjoyed years of sunbathing, sandcastles, and boardwalk fries while vacationing at sandy beaches along the East Coast, the piping plover has faded into the background - literally.
Piping plovers, Charadrius melodus, breed on Atlantic coastal beaches from Newfoundland to North Carolina. The sand-colored birds can be found at several national park sites: Cape Cod, Fire Island, Assateague Island, Cape Hatteras, and Cape Lookout national seashores and Gateway National Recreation Area.
At one time, the species, which was named for its melodic mating call, also bred across the beaches of the five Great Lakes, but numbers in that region have declined steadily since the 1930s. In 1986, the Great Lakes breeding population was listed as endangered, and piping plovers along the Atlantic coast were listed as threatened. The Great Lakes population - about 50 pairs - now nests along the beaches of northern Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Superior, primarily at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
A loss of habitat and human and pet disturbance have caused the species' numbers to wane. Beaches used by plovers for nesting, roosting, and feeding have succumbed to commercial, residential, and recreational development. Raccoons and other predators also have contributed to their endangered status.
Piping plovers are small, stocky North American shorebirds about six inches long and usually weigh about two ounces. The birds' tiny legs and stout beaks are orange, the tips of the bills dipped in black. The feathers on their backs and crowns are the color of dry sand. Their under-parts are white, and single black bands stretch across their necks and foreheads. In the winter, the bills turn black, the legs become pale, and the band around the neck disappears. During breeding season (eggs are laid from the end of April to mid-June), their legs turn bright orange.
An estimated 1,400 nesting pairs of piping plovers live along the Eastern seaboard, says Jeff Cordes, a biologist at Cape Lookout National Seashore, a migration stopover and wintering area for the species and home to 14 of North Carolina's 24 nesting pairs.
"Cape Lookout has had the highest number of nesting plovers in North Carolina since 1986," says Cordes. "Nobody knows for sure what was happening before then because there was no regular monitoring."
Today, some national parks have unofficial recovery plans set up to improve the numbers. Sleeping Bear Dunes, for example, ropes off sections of beach for nests and incubating adults, according to Dusty Shultz, the park's superintendent. And park biologists establish enclosures - 50-foot-long wire fences with monofilament strung across the top - around the nests to keep predators at bay.
At Cape Lookout, nesting areas are closed to visitors, and the staff sometimes move nests in danger of being flooded. "We carefully monitor all plover nesting activity," Cordes says. "Unfortunately, despite these efforts, the number of nesting plovers in the park has declined from 39 nesting pairs in 1994. It has been frustrating because the management tools we're using have been very successful in the Northeast."
Shultz says several things need to happen before the species can recover: The breeding population must be protected and managed, wintering grounds must be managed to promote survival and recruitment, and migration habitat must be identified and protected. Cordes agrees. "Their recovery is very possible - at least in parts of the range."
Shultz and Cordes say the public can help prevent piping plovers' extinction by respecting posted closed areas, encouraging the protection of natural, undeveloped coastal areas, and keeping pets leashed.
