The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed today to designate critical habitat for the northern Great Plains breeding population of piping plover (Charadrius melodus), an imperiled migratory shorebird. This proposal includes 196,576 acres of habitat and 1,338 river miles in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. The Service will hold informational meetings in the affected states this summer and take public comments before finalizing this proposal.
Proposed areas of critical habitat include prairie alkali wetlands and surrounding shoreline; river channels and associated sandbars and islands; and reservoirs and inland lakes and their sparsely vegetated shorelines, peninsulas, and islands. These areas provide primary courtship, nesting, foraging, sheltering, brood-rearing and dispersal habitat for piping plovers.
"The designation of critical habitat for the piping plover will help us work with other Federal and state agencies and private landowners to recover this imperiled species," said Ralph Morgenweck, the Service
