The Northern Great Plains and
Atlantic coast piping plovers are threatened species. Threatened species are
animals and plants that are likely to become endangered in the foreseeable
future. The piping plover in the Great Lakes area is an endangered species.
Endangered species are animals and plants that are in danger of becoming
extinct. Piping Plovers were common along the Atlantic Coast during much
of the 19th century, but nearly disappeared due to excessive hunting for the
millinery trade. People used the birds and feathers on hats.
Following passage of the Migratory Bird
Treaty Act in 1918, numbers recovered to a 20th century peak which occurred
during the 1940's. The current population decline is attributed to
increased development and recreational use of beaches since the end of World
War II.
Table of Contents
Photo: C.Perez/USFWS
Piping Plover
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What does the Piping Plover look like?
The piping plover is a small, stocky shorebird
resembling a sandpiper. The adults weigh 1.5 to 2 ounces, have a length of 7
inches, and a wingspread of 15 inches. Both sexes are similar in size and
color; upper parts are pale brownish, underparts are white. A black band across
the forehead over the eye, and a black ring around the base of the neck are
distinguishing marks in adults during the summer, but are obscure during the
winter.
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What does the Piping Plover eat?
They eat worms, fly larvae,
beetles, crustaceans, molluscs, and other invertebrates (Bent 1928), which are
plucked from the sand. Chicks begin feeding on smaller sizes of these same
foods shortly after they hatch.
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Where do they live and have their young?
Piping plovers use wide,
flat, open, sandy beaches with very little grass or other vegetation. Nesting
territories often include small creeks or wetlands. The piping plover breeds on
the northern Great Plains, in the Great Lakes, and along the Atlantic coast
(Newfoundland to North Carolina); and winters on the Atlantic and Gulf of
Mexico coasts from North Carolina to Mexico, and in the Bahamas West Indies.
Breeding birds on the North Carolina coast are mostly found from the vicinity
of Cape Lookout northward.
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What
are their nesting rituals?
pPiping plovers arrive on
their breeding grounds in late March or early April. Following establishment of
nesting territories and courtship rituals, the pair form a depression in the
sand generally on the upper beach close to the dunes (or in other shoreline
habitats depending on the portion of the range). This is where the female will
lay her eggs. The nest is often lined with stones or small fragments of shell.
Occupied nests are generally 15O to 3OO feet apart. Average clutch size is four
eggs. Both eggs and young are well camouflaged. The young hatch about 27 to 31
days after egg laying. When predators or other intruders come close, the young
squat motionless on the sand while the parents attempt to attract the attention
of intruders to themselves, often by feigning a broken wing. The young fledge
at about 4 weeks of age. If the eggs are destroyed early in the nesting season,
the birds usually lay a second clutch. By early September both adults and young
will have departed for their wintering areas.
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Why is the Piping Plover Threatened/ Endangered?
The primary threats to the
piping plover are habitat modification and destruction, and human disturbance
to nesting adults and flightless chicks. A lack of undisturbed habitat has been
cited as a reason for the decline of other shorebirds such as the black skimmer
and least tern.
Recreational and commercial development and dune
stabilization have contributed greatly to the loss of piping plover breeding
habitat along the Atlantic Coast and Great Lakes. In the Great Plains
region, damming and channelization of rivers also have eliminated sandbar
nesting habitat. Wintering habitat has probably also been lost to coastal
development, and inlet and shoreline stabilization features.
Recreational pressure, and pedestrian and
vehicular traffic can seriously affect breeding success. Over the past 4O
years, the number of vehicles and people on beaches has increased
significantly. Human presence can indirectly lower productivity by disrupting
territorial establishment, courtship, egg laying, and incubation activities.
Foot traffic, dune buggies, and other vehicles (including raking of beaches for
trash) can directly crush eggs or chicks and the ruts left by off-road vehicles
can trap flightless chicks.
Concurrently, increased urbanization and
recreational pressure along the Great Lakes and Atlantic Coast has created an
unnatural proliferation of predators. Human developments near beaches have
resulted in an increased number of skunks, racoons, and gulls that are
attracted to large quantities of refuse. The result has been predation of
plover chicks and eggs and abandonment of nesting areas.
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What is Being Done to Prevent Extinction of the
Piping Plover?
- Listing - The Great Lakes population of the piping plover was
listed as an endangered species in 1986, and the Northern Great Plains and
Atlantic Coast populations were listed as threatened species that same
year. It is protected under the Endangered Species Act.
- Recovery Plans - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service developed recovery
plans that describe actions that need to be taken to help the bird survive
and recover.
- Research - Several cooperative research groups have been set up
among Federal and State agencies, university and private research centers,
and the Canadian Wildlife Service. Studies are being conducted to
determine where plovers breed and winter, estimate numbers, and monitor
long-term changes in populations.
- Habitat Protection - Measures to protect the bird's habitat are
conducted each year, including controlling human access to nesting areas,
nest monitoring and protection, limiting residential and industrial
development, and properly managing water flow. At Holgate, the beach is
closed to public access during nesting season.
- Public Education - Many States and private agencies are running
successful public information campaigns to raise awareness of the plover's
plight.
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Things You Can Do To Help Protect the Piping Plover
- Respect all areas fenced or
posted for protection of wildlife.
- Do not approach or linger near piping
plovers or their nests.
- If pets are permitted on beaches used by
plovers, keep your pets leashed.
- Don't leave or bury trash or food scraps on
beaches. Garbage attracts predators which may prey
upon piping plover eggs or chicks.
Learn more about the piping plover and other
endangered and threatened species. Understand how the
destruction of habitat leads to loss of
endangered and threatened species and our nation's plant and animal diversity.
See this website for a list of Threatened and Endangered Animals and Plants:
http://endangered.fws.gov/wildlife.html
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