Piping Plovers

By Joe Kosack, Wildlife Conservation Education Specialist, Pennsylvania Game Commission

Their foothold in Pennsylvania was never more than a few beachfronts on Presque Isle State Park in Erie County. And, to most beachgoers, their presence was largely undetected. But the loss of these handsome shorebirds as nesters is unfortunate, and something the Pennsylvania Game Commission and other partners are trying to reverse.

Piping plovers nested on the outer shores of Presque Isle into the early 1950s, and then apparently pulled stakes on their nesting grounds. It was a recurring reaction that haunted piping plovers throughout the Great Lakes region until their population collapsed under increasing - but unintentional - competition with humans for beachfront.

The piping plover's continuing struggles here and elsewhere in the Great Lakes region isn't exactly news. It's been on the federal endangered species list since 1985, and currently is listed as extirpated in Pennsylvania since the species hasn't built a nest instate in decades.

Nonetheless, piping plovers created a stir among Pennsylvania birders and wildlife managers over the past year because they appeared on a Presque Isle beach again. But not during seasonal migrations, which has been this reformed transient's pattern for some time. Rather, these plovers were spotted at Presque Isle's Gull Point Natural Area during the 2005 breeding season. The hope is that they were doing more than just passing through. Their timing suggests that they were.

Given their now established - although somewhat dubious - summer presence, and the fact that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) had previously designated Gull Point as a "critical habitat area" for the endangered piping plover, the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners recently approved a staff request to step up its management of piping plovers and develop a detailed Pennsylvania conservation plan.

"Piping plover sightings at Presque Isle State Park during the summer of 2005 have created a stir among birders, because it suggests there is a chance these birds are looking for a nesting site," explained Dan Brauning, who supervises the Game Commission's Wildlife Diversity Program. "That hasn't happened for half a century in this state. For decades, Pennsylvanians only saw piping plovers passing through on migrations in the spring and fall. The summer sightings suggest something may have changed or is about to change.

"We believe the prospects for change in the status of piping plovers in Pennsylvania is genuine, because their population is recovering in the Great Lakes region. This reversal - albeit slow in developing - is a direct result of state and federal efforts to protect and improve plover habitat and public outreach campaigns to increase awareness of and enlist cooperation in the ongoing recovery effort."

The Game Commission will contract with Catherine Haffner, a technical expert on piping plovers who currently resides in Danville, Montour County, to identify management and conservation strategies, and help assemble and implement a "piping plover response plan" that would facilitate the possible restoration of plovers - and possibly common terns, another state endangered species - on Presque Isle beaches. The effort will be funded primarily through annual federal endangered species appropriations and a supplemental federal grant.

Haffner, who was a field coordinator in the Michigan Department of Natural Resources' piping plover recovery effort and who wrote her master's thesis on piping plovers at the University of Minnesota, is a biologist who specializes in the recovery of small bird populations. Her experience and firsthand knowledge of plovers will benefit Pennsylvania's unfolding effort to intensify its management of piping plovers.

"Piping plovers certainly are endearing birds, and I believe the efforts made by the news media and state and federal agencies in Michigan and other Great Lakes states, like Pennsylvania, have helped their plight," Haffner said. "Raising awareness is the first step. It was always great to talk to someone on the beach about piping plovers who would reference an article he or she had read in the newspaper. Recognition and understanding of the piping plover's plight are key in garnering the public's support and cooperation."

Haffner will work with Game Commission biologists to develop and implement conservation strategies with the highest likelihood of attracting plover pairs to Presque Isle's beaches. In addition, she will work closely with park personnel at Presque Isle.

"The Great Lakes piping plover population has increased by 300 percent since it was granted protection under the Endangered Species Act in the mid 1980s," Haffner explained. "Over the past few years, piping plovers have been observed at several historic nesting beaches, including Presque Isle's Gull Point. The timing of this cooperative effort couldn't be better."

An infrequent visitor to Pennsylvania's Lake Erie shoreline, the piping plover is related to the more common killdeer, found statewide. Taxonomists recognized the piping plover for its sweet call, and the longer-legged killdeer for simply being insistently loud. Naturally compact and stocky, piping plovers nest in the Great Lakes region, along the Atlantic Coast in the Northeast and the northern Great Plains. Loss of habitat - beaches of sand and cobble with sparse vegetation - is the primary reason these shorebirds have fallen on hard times in the Great Lakes. Human activities, feral cats and unleashed dogs on beaches also have helped to keep populations suppressed.

"This can be a tremendous recovery if we're successful," explained Brauning. "It's obvious that Gull Point offers our best hope of getting piping plovers and common terns off Pennsylvania's extirpated species list. There has been a coordinated effort to make Gull Point more attractive to these endangered species. Now, we're going to intensify that effort and hope for the best."

About five years ago, the USFWS designated a portion of the Gull Point Natural Area as a critical habitat area for piping plovers, because it provided foraging areas for migrating piping plovers and had areas that were historically used by plovers for breeding, nesting and rearing young. A 3.7-mile section of Presque Isle's shoreline was subsequently protected under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act. As early as 1994, a large portion of Gull Point - 67 acres - was designated as a natural area that is closed to public use from April 1 to Nov. 30. The state park annually attracts about four million people. Gull Point is the peninsula's furthest extension into Lake Erie.

The Great Lakes piping plover population was once vibrant and widespread. Then it began to decline steadily in the early 1900s. By the 1930s, as few as 500 pairs were believed to be nesting in the Great Lakes. In 1982, the number of confirmed nesting pairs dropped to below 20.

In 1904, noted western Pennsylvania ornithologist W.E. Clyde Todd wrote, "About 15 pairs of this interesting little plover nest annually on the outer shore of Presque Isle, where I have often met with it during May and June. Its favorite haunts are wide stretches of dry, sandy beach, with which it agrees so perfectly in color that unless in motion, it is difficult to distinguish. It runs very rapidly, and is rather shy and hard to approach."

More than a century later - and with numbers at precariously low levels, but rebounding apparently ever so slightly - the piping plover retains its affinity for Presque Isle. With some help throughout the Great Lakes Region, plovers will get the habitat protection and security they must have to completely reverse their population's historic nosedive. The piping plover will remain a federally endangered species in this region until its population attains 150 pairs - including 100 pairs in Michigan - for at least five years and suitable habitat is adequately protected.

"The long-term federal goal for the piping plover's Great Lakes Region population is to remove it from the endangered and threatened species lists by 2020," Brauning said. "It would appear the work the Pennsylvania Game Commission is proposing, efforts already underway by park staff and the direction the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is taking with piping plovers ought to dovetail handsomely. Time will tell."

11/10/2006