SUPERIOR – Endangered piping plovers, among Wisconsin’s rarest birds, recorded their best breeding season ever, a promising payoff after more than 20 years of partner efforts to protect nests, monitor their young, and increase habitat.
“This was an exciting year for piping plovers in Wisconsin,” says Reena Bowman, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.
“We documented two new nesting locations at the Apostle Islands, five pairs at Cat Island, a record 10 pairs overall, and, at 26, a record number of chicks that reached flight stage.”
The successful nesting season is particularly gratifying after 2018’s tough year, when there were more nests but fewer successfully hatched and fledged chicks, says Abi Fergus, wildlife specialist for the Mashkiiziibii (Bad River) Natural Resources Department. Mashkiiziibii collaborates with the National Park Service and employs the plover monitors who work to safeguard eggs and chicks from predators and human disturbances.
“Our involvement in this project is a good example of the way in which tribes play a pivotal role in wildlife conservation,” says Fergus. “Along with scientific understanding, Tribes bring an understanding that people are part of their ecosystems along with our relatives: other animals, plants, and living things. Mashkiiziibii is proud to support the piping plovers of Chequamegon Point, within the reservation.”
As encouraging as the record number of fledged chicks was the fact that piping plovers stopped in Minnesota right across from the Wisconsin Point Bird Sanctuary. Here state, federal and local partners are restoring Allouez Bay shoreline and foraging and nesting habitat specifically for plovers. Work is expected to be done next spring, and there are high hopes the birds will nest there.
“This was a banner year in many respects, perhaps most importantly because we had birds nesting at more sites than ever, and next year, Wisconsin Point could potentially provide another viable breeding location in the state,” says Sumner Matteson, DNR avian ecologist.
“The more sites we have available, the less likely a single predation event at any one or two sites is going to make a major difference to the state’s breeding population.”
The record nesting year was a long time coming: the first recorded breeding in Wisconsin of the rare piping plover occurred in 1891 in Jefferson County. During the 1920s and 1930s, there were as many as six breeding pairs in Wisconsin along Lake Michigan in any one year, but habitat loss, recreational pressure, and predation likely contributed to serious declines along all the Great Lakes.
By 1948, only one pair of plovers was known to nest in Wisconsin and the piping plover was added to the state endangered species list in 1979. Across the Great Lakes region, the loss of habitat caused numbers to drop below 20 nesting pairs region-wide before the small shorebird was officially listed as federally endangered in 1986.
The National Park Service, Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa, DNR, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy launched concentrated efforts 20 years ago to protect piping plover nests, monitor for predators and band young birds on Long Island in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. In 2016, piping plovers nested in lower Green Bay for the first time in 75 years—at the Cat Island restoration chain; the project is ongoing and is being completed in partnership with local, state, and federal partners.
Now, in 2019, a high point has been reached: a record five breeding pairs were documented at the Cat Island chain, and five in the Apostle Islands, including Long/Chequamengon Point, Stockton and Outer.
“This was an exciting and surprising year for piping plovers with two first-time situations,” said National Park Service Biologist Peggy Burkman. “Plovers nested on three islands in the park, and we collected and transferred three abandoned eggs from Long Island to the captive rearing station in Pellston, Michigan, where they reared and later released the chicks. A great year!”
Including the chicks fledged in 2019, Wisconsin has contributed 118 chicks toward the recovery goal of 150 breeding pairs, with the current population nearly halfway there.
Check out a slideshow of this year's Wisconsin piping plover chicks.
