Piping plovers have been struggling for decades. All three U.S. populations are federally protected–two are threatened and the third is endangered. Despite habitat restoration efforts, piping plovers may be facing their greatest adversary yet–climate change. Sea level rise and migratory challenges could push them to the brink of extinction. We must take action quickly to save piping plovers.
Sandy Colored Shorebirds
Piping plovers (Charadrius melodus) are small, sandy colored shorebirds with white undersides and black neck rings that appear during breeding season. They live on beaches and mudflats along coastlines. Their diet is made up of freshwater and marine invertebrates and insects. They nest in shallow scrapes in the sand and lay two to five eggs. Both parents incubate their eggs and care for their young (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, n.d.).
Two subspecies of piping plovers live in the United States: C. m. circumcinctus and C. m. melodus. The two subspecies are divided further into three populations. The circumcinctus subspecies make up the Great Plains population (threatened) and the Great Lakes population (endangered). The melodus subspecies makes up the Atlantic population (threatened). Plovers spend their summers in the north at their breeding
grounds. However, the majority of the year is spent further south at their wintering grounds. While individuals from each population tend to migrate to the same area, that is not always the case. Plovers from the Great Plains population tend to winter on the Gulf coast (Gratto‐Trevor et al., 2011). Individuals from the Great Lakes population are more commonly found wintering on the Georgia or Florida coast (Stucker et al., 2010). Birds from the Atlantic population tend to travel further south and over winter in Florida and the Bahamas (Gratto‐Trevor et al., 2016).
Why Piping Plovers?
Piping plovers are an umbrella species. Their breeding and foraging habitats can range from 100 to 1000 meters. As threatened and endangered species, they are federally protected in the U.S. under the Endangered Species Act. Piping plovers are not the only species that use their habitats. The protection afforded to piping plovers helps protect other species as well. For example, the barrier beach habitats on the Atlantic coast are also home to other rare or declining bird, plant, sea turtle and tiger beetle species. These species in turn benefit from the conservation efforts aimed at piping plovers (Hecker, 2008). In the Great Lakes, over 500 species of birds breed, winter, or use the area during their migration. Here too, many other species–in fact the entire ecosystem–can reap the benefits of piping plover conservation efforts.
Piping Plovers in Chicago
Chicago hadn’t seen piping plovers since 1955. In 1986 the Great Lakes population was added to the endangered species list. However, it wasn’t until 2015 that they were once again spotted in Chicago. Then, in 2019, a pair of plovers lovingly named Monty and Rose, began nesting at a restored habitat along Montrose Beach. This restored habitat on the shore of Lake Michigan is now named the Monty and Rose Wildlife Habitat. For three years, Monty and Rose successfully raised chicks at Montrose Beach. After Rose failed to return and Monty passed in 2022, one of their chicks, Imani, returned to Montrose Beach looking for a mate of his own.
After two seasons as a bachelor, Imani finally found a mate. Sea Rocket was released at Montrose Beach as a fledgling in 2023, after being captive reared when her nest was abandon. In 2024 she returned to Montrose Beach where she and Imani mated and raised a chick named Nagamo. Imani and Sea Rocket weren’t the only two adults at Montrose Beach. A second male by the name of Pippin also called Montrose Beach his summer home, attesting to the positive outcomes of local restoration efforts.
In 1990, there were only 13 plover pairs in the Great Lakes piping plover population. With much work, this number has increased to about 80 pairs, but piping plovers still face an uphill battle.
Sea Level Rise
Greenhouse gasses are on the rise, causing significant climate changes and threatening all life on Earth. Increasing temperatures are causing ice that has been locked up in glaciers for millions of years to melt at alarming rates. Glacial melt in Greenland is estimated to make sea level rise at least ten inches by the year 2100. This equates to roughly 3.3% of glacial mass loss on Greenland alone (Box et al., 2022). This is an alarming statistic considering there are many other areas with melting glaciers contributing to sea level rise.
Research and climate change models are continually evolving. They provide new projections and different perspectives on what climate change may mean for the Great Lakes Basin. Recent predictions using a regional climate model along with a 3-D lake model show an increase in temperatures. The most drastic increases will be in the winter months. Precipitation will also increase, with the greatest increases in fall and spring. Ice cover on all of the Great Lakes, with the exception of Lake Erie, will decrease. Lake Erie is significantly shallower than the other lakes and does not hold as much heat. This will allow for ice to continue to form during the colder months. However, winters on the lakes may be nearly ice free. Additionally, the Great Lakes are predicted to experience an increase in winter storms and an increase in lake effect snow. Lake levels will rise and coastal flooding will occur throughout the Great Lake Basin (Xue et al., 2022).
How Sea Level Rise Affects Piping Plovers
While coastal flooding isn’t all bad news for piping plovers, lake and sea level rise could end in disaster. Piping plovers nest on sandy shorelines with sparse vegetation, above the high tide lines. This makes nests susceptible to localized flooding and nest abandonment. However, this is a delicate balance. Some flooding is needed to prevent too much vegetation encroachment on piping plover breeding habitat (Gratto-Trevor & Abbott, 2011).
On the Atlantic coast, barrier islands provide suitable habitat for piping plovers. Barrier islands migrate as waves move sediment from one side of the island to the other through natural processes. Changes–both positive and negative–to piping plover habitat depended on islands’ ability to migrate inland and up slope. However, human development has the potential to impede these processes (Seavey et al., 2011).
Wintering grounds of the piping plover are not immune to climate related sea level rise. In the Gulf Coast region of Florida, models predict increased habitat fragmentation and land loss due to sea level rise. Piping plovers face a greater risk of population decline, especially when compared to other shorebird species in the area (Convertino et al., 2012).
Whether on barrier islands, in the Great Lakes region, or on coastal wintering grounds, shorebirds like the piping plover will experience a decrease in suitable habitat. Sea level rise, exacerbated by climate change, will push shorebirds up against urban developments.Their habitats will become more fragmented or even disappear. The survival of piping plovers depends on the availability of shoreline habitat. If this habitat is unable to migrate, plovers may be forced out of parts, or all, of their current ranges.
Migration
Migrating birds must find food at stopover sites along the way in order to make their long journeys. Researchers are concerned that climate change is altering the timing of fruit and insect availability–essential food sources for migrating birds. If timing is off and food is scarce, birds may need to spend additional time and energy foraging in order to meet their energetic needs (VanTol et al., 2021).
Weather surveillance radar data has been used to compare continental bird migration patterns and temperature data across North America. Horton et al. (2019) analyzed more than 13 million radar scans from 1995 to 2018. Results showed shifts in migration timing throughout the entire continental U.S., with greater shifts at higher latitudes. In nearly all locations studied, both spring and fall migrations shifted earlier, but more so in spring than in fall. In addition, data showed a warming trend at 96% of the weather stations studied (Horton et al., 2019).
Birds that migrate shorter distances have been found to be more flexible in their migration timing. They take into account environmental cues, like temperature, which can change from year to year (Horton et al., 2019; Miller-Rushing et al., 2008). While this seems like good news for endangered piping plovers, newly published research suggests their struggle will continue. The new growth of green vegetation in the spring–referred to as green-up–has been shifting earlier in the year. This shift is happening as average global temperatures rise. Yet the timing of bird migration tends to be closer to the long term average of green-up rather than current conditions. This indicates that migrating birds are adapting at a slower rate (Robertson et al., 2024).
How can you help?
Climate change may seem like an insurmountable hurdle, leaving us to wonder, “What difference can I make?” While no one can address climate change on their own, there are things you can do to help both climate change and piping plovers.
Climate change may seem like an insurmountable hurdle, leaving us to wonder, “What difference can I make?” While no one can address climate change on their own, there are things you can do to help both climate change and piping plovers.
- Get involved. There are a number of organizations dedicated to piping plover conservation. Try reaching out to your local Audubon chapter. Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Effort supporters can help by donating, helping with local beach clean ups and restorations, or even by simply reporting a piping plover sighting. Using apps like iNaturalist or eBird to record wildlife sightings can give researchers valuable information about the ecosystem.
- Stay out of protected wildlife areas and encourage others to do so as well. While we can’t control where wild animals go, we can give them their space and provide them with suitable habitat undisturbed by human activities. Montrose Beach in Chicago is a great example. It has a designated dog friendly area, plenty of space for recreational activities and a protected wildlife area.
- Reduce your carbon footprint. Climate change is largely fueled by increasing atmospheric carbon levels. You can reduce how much carbon you are contributing to the atmosphere by doing things like choosing foods and paper products from sustainable sources. You can switch to an electric or hybrid car, carpool, take public transportation, walk, or ride a bike or scooter. You can switch to sustainable energy sources, buy local, and take measures to conserve water. You can buy reusable products instead of single use versions and compost biodegradable waste rather than throwing it in the trash.
- Contact your local government official. Let them know that climate change and environmental conservation are priorities for you and that they should be priorities for governments as well.
- Tell your family and friends. No one can tackle these issues on their own. But the more people get involved, the greater difference we can make. Talk to your family and friends about numbers one through four above and suggest ways they can help too.
About The Author
Lindsay Keller works as an Animal Placement Coordinator at Chicago Animal Care and Control and is a volunteer Piping Plover Monitor in Chicago, Illinois. She is also a graduate student with Project Dragonfly at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in conjunction with Brookfield Zoo Chicago. Her current studies focus on the connection between animal behavior and conservation.
References
- Box, J. E., Hubbard, A., Bahr, D. B., Colgan, W. T., Fettweis, X., Mankoff, K. D., Wehrlé, A., Noël, B., van den Broeke, M. R., Wouters, B., Bjørk, A. A., & Fausto, R. S. (2022). Greenland ice sheet climate disequilibrium and committed sea-level rise. Nature Climate Change, 12(9), 808–813. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01441-2
- Convertino, M., Bockelie, A., Kiker, G. A., Muñoz‐Carpena, R., & Linkov, I. (2012). Shorebird patches as fingerprints of fractal coastline fluctuations due to climate change. Ecological Processes, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/2192-1709-1-9
- Gratto-Trevor, C., & Abbott, S. (2011). Conservation of Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) in North America: science, successes, and challenges. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 89(5), 401–418. https://doi.org/10.1139/z11-024
- Gratto‐Trevor, C. L., Amirault-Langlais, D. L., Catlin, D. H., Cuthbert, F. J., Fraser, J. D., Maddock, S. B., Roche, E., & Shaffer, F. (2011). Connectivity in piping plovers: Do breeding populations have distinct winter distributions? The Journal of Wildlife Management, 76(2), 348–355. https://doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.261
- Gratto‐Trevor, C. L., Haig, S. M., Miller, M. P., Mullins, T. D., Maddock, S. B., Roche, E., & Moore, P. (2016). Breeding sites and winter site fidelity of Piping Plovers wintering in The Bahamas, a previously unknown major wintering area. Journal of Field Ornithology, 87(1), 29–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofo.12131
- Hecker, S. (2008). The piping plover as an umbrella species for the Barrier beach ecosystem. In R. A. Askins, G. D. Dreyer, G. R. Visgilio, & D. M. Whitelaw (Eds.), Saving Biological Diversity (pp. 59–74). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09565-3_6
- Horton, K. G., La Sorte, F. A., Sheldon, D., Lin, T. Y., Winner, K., Bernstein, G., Maji, S., Hochachka, W. M., & Farnsworth, A. (2019). Phenology of nocturnal avian migration has shifted at the continental scale. Nature Climate Change, 10(1), 63–68. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0648-9
- Miller-Rushing, A. J., Lloyd-Evans, T. L., Primack, R. B., & Satzinger, P. (2008). Bird migration times, climate change, and changing population sizes. Global Change Biology, 14(9), 1959–1972. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01619.x
- Robertson, E. P., La Sorte, F. A., Mays, J. D., Taillie, P. J., Robinson, O. J., Ansley, R. J., O’Connell, T. J., Davis, C. A., & Loss, S. R. (2024). Decoupling of bird migration from the changing phenology of spring green-up. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(12). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2308433121
- Seavey, J. R., Gilmer, B., & McGarigal, K. M. (2011). Effect of sea-level rise on piping plover (Charadrius melodus) breeding habitat. Biological Conservation, 144(1), 393–401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2010.09.017
- Stucker, J. H., Cuthbert, F. J., Winn, B., Noel, B. L., Maddock, S. B., Leary, P., Cordes, J., & Wemmer, L. C. (2010). Distribution of Non-Breeding Great Lakes Piping Plovers (Charadrius melodus) along Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico Coastlines: Ten Years of Band Sightings. Waterbirds, 33(1), 22–32. https://doi.org/10.1675/063.033.0103
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. (n.d.). Piping Plover. Retrieved November 15, 2022, from https://www.fws.gov/species/piping-plover-charadrius-melodus
- VanTol, S. D., Koehn, C. R., Keith, R., Keith, B., & Proppe, D. S. (2021). Avian migrants encounter higher temperatures but continue to add mass at an inland stopover site in the Great Lakes region. Journal of Avian Biology, 52(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/jav.02626
- Xue, P., Ye, X., Pal, J. S., Chu, P. Y., Kayastha, M. B., & Huang, C. (2022). Climate projections over the Great Lakes Region: using two-way coupling of a regional climate model with a 3-D lake model. Geoscientific Model Development, 15(11), 4425–4446. https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-4425-2022
This piece was prepared online by Panuruji Kenta, Publisher, SEVENSEAS Media