By TODD McLEISH/ecoRI News
contributor
Rhode Island’s
population of piping plovers — the rare, sand-colored shorebird that breeds
primarily on ocean-facing beaches — has grown significantly since it hit an
all-time low of fewer than 20 pairs in the early 1980s. But 2017 was a bad year for the birds. Heavy spring rains and a continuing battle with predators caused a decline in the number of chicks the plovers produced.
According to Jennifer
White, the biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service who monitors the
plover population, the statewide breeding population is about 100 pairs, though
the population fluctuates annually as some birds move back and forth to beaches
in Massachusetts and Connecticut, depending on changing beach conditions.
On South County beaches,
where most of the birds breed, White counted 73 pairs of piping plovers this
summer, mostly at Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge in South Kingstown,
Quonochontaug Beach in Charlestown, and East Beach in Westerly. Another 23
pairs nested in Little Compton at Goosewing Beach Preserve, Briggs Beach and
Fogland Marsh Preserve. In addition, one pair nested at Third Beach in
Middletown.
White said each nest, on average, produced just 0.68 chicks, well below the 1.25 needed to maintain a stable population, and far below the 1.62 chicks produced last year. The one bright spot was at Ninigret Conservation Area, where seven pairs of plovers produced an average of 2.29 chicks per nest.
“Productivity this year
was very, very low, we think because of a lot of predators, both avian and
mammalian,” White said, noting that crows, gulls, foxes and coyotes are the
primary predators of plover eggs and chicks. “At some sites, we saw canine
footprints that went from nest to nest.”
The chilly, wet spring
also caused many nests to fail.
“We had a lot of nest
failures right after the chicks hatched because of the rain,” White said. “The
chicks can forage as soon as they hatch, but they can’t thermoregulate, so they
still rely on their parents to keep them warm and dry. We had a lot of young
chicks under five days old when we had rain all day, and we lost those broods.”
Staff and volunteers
from The Nature Conservancy monitor the piping plovers on Little Compton
beaches. Tim Mooney, the conservancy’s director of communication, said those
beaches faced similar declines in chick productivity.
“I’m struck by how many
things really have to go right for the plovers to fledge chicks,” he said. “The
habitat conditions have to be right, the tides, storms, predators. It really
demonstrates how difficult it can be to bring a species back to healthy,
self-sustaining numbers.”
Mooney and White also
noted that abundant human beach-goers can also be a factor in the success or
failure of piping plover nests, though the beaches that attract the most human
visitors seldom have any plovers attempting to nest.
“It’s a perennial
issue,” Mooney said. “Every day there is potential for user conflict, and we do
our best to work with the visitors and the community to manage that threat.”
The Nature Conservancy
and the Fish & Wildlife Service conduct daily patrols of the beaches where
the plovers nest, rope off nesting areas, and place mesh “exclosures” around
nests to keep predators at bay while allowing the birds free access to and from
their nests. They also keep daily records of how many plovers are nesting at
each beach, how many eggs are laid, and how many chicks survive to fledge.
“This was a rough year,
but we know our management activities helped the birds,” White said. “But we
still have a lot of work to do to make sure people follow beach guidelines and
are aware of the birds, keep their dogs leashed, and carry out their food,
which attracts predators to the beach.”
Mooney said an important
part of conservancy’s monitoring efforts is pointing out the plovers to beach
visitors so they can develop an appreciation for the birds.
“Once you’ve ... seen a
chick run across the beach, you can’t help but want to do something to help
them,” he said.
Piping plovers are
categorized as threatened on the federal Endangered Species List. They breed on
Atlantic coastal beaches from Newfoundland to North Carolina. (A separate population
breeds in the Great Lakes region.) To be removed from the list, they must
achieve a chick productivity rate of 1.5 per pair for five consecutive years
and maintain a breeding population of 2,000 pairs.
“We’re committed to
plover restoration in Rhode Island, but we’re just one spot in the range of
these birds,” Mooney said. “The whole North Atlantic population would have to
achieve that level of chick productivity to be delisted, so while individual
sites may reach that target here and there, I don’t think we’re close to seeing
the whole region reach it.”
Rhode Island resident
and author Todd McLeish runs a wildlife blog.