Everything not plover must be removed

[Steve Coleman]

National Plover Service plays God. Who needs Darwin.

 

Look at table 5.

 

I think trapped means shot / butchered.

 

 

http://www.nps.gov/caha/naturescienc...gs.%201-11.pdf

 

 

Steve

[Matt Z]

Wow. . . . . .

 

Stuff ghost crab holes with sticks, trap wild animals, and close down beaches. Like you said, who is the NPS to play Darwin. Maybe if the bird was a bit smarter it would nest somewhere safe. Now we all have to suffer cuz this bird is retarded and some tree huggers want to protect a weak animal.

 

my $.02

[derf]

Stuff ghost crab holes with sticks, trap wild animals, and close down beaches

that crap has been going on for awhile now !!!

[Possum]

We need to somehow get the idiotic bird bunglers off of the National Seashore beaches right now...before they cause any more damage to the beach wildlife/ecosystem....

Predators are not the only critters suffering from their misguided and naive efforts..

381 out of 400 PIPL eggs/chicks were killed/destroyed at Assateague this year...in a public beach area that was totally closed to pedestrians and OSVs for the entire Piping Plover breeding season.This is a monumental failure in resource management....

Isolating these birds in areas that are the hunting grounds for an almost endless list of predators is sheer stupidity.

[Possum]

don't mean to hijack Steve's thread........got a couple pms asking about this.

 

 

Plovers' numbers decreasing

 

Only 19 Assateague chicks survived the breeding season out of more than 400

 

By Laura D'Alessandro "¢ Staff Writer "¢ August 12, 20

BERLIN -- When Betty Pitney heard only 19 piping plover chicks survived this year's breeding season on Assateague Island National Seashore, she was surprised by the number and said she couldn't help feeling sad

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Pitney, a member of the TriCounty Bird Club, assisted the National Park Service in a survey of the plovers in early June and said she counted more than 100 adult plovers with at least four eggs per nest.

Assateague Island, the last undeveloped beach on Maryland's coast, supports one of the highest densities of breeding plovers on the East Coast. The plovers are federally endangered and breed on sparsely vegetated flat sand that has been dug out by severe erosion, but a lack of winter storms have made areas sub par for plover breeding in recent years.

The decline in population brings the threat of losing the indigenous species if breeding continues to be unsuccessful. But Assateague Island Chief of Resource Management Carl Zimmerman said more storms are bound to come bringing the return of prime breeding beaches.

The National Park Service even limits stabilization efforts on Assateague Island to benefit the breeding ground, but their intervention can only make so much of an impact.

"This is mother nature and we can't do anything about these kind of things," Pitney said.

Hurricanes have missed local beaches for more than 20 years and the last nor'easter to effect a local coastline was in 1998, much to the relief of resort beaches. But the lack of storms has caused Assateague Island beaches to grow dunes and fill in formerly open sand flats, reducing habitat for plovers.

Predators were an extreme problem this year, according to Maryland Coastal Bays Program Executive Director Dave Wilson.

"There is a problem with gulls because their numbers are so prolific," he said. "They're eating French fries, but they're opportunistic so they will eat what they can."

Wilson said many plover eggs could be a gull's next meal, while chicks who wander out of the breeding area could be attacked by foxes.

Unusually high tides in May flooded and destroyed much of the birds' first attempt to nest, followed by a summer of limited food supply for baby birds. A press release from the National Park Service said this year was the worst breeding season since monitoring of the species begin in 1986 and "follows three previous years of poor success."

The Maryland population fell by 24 percent this year.

Assateague Island plans to continue its efforts to maintain the habitat, but puts the rest in the hand of nature.

"It is tough to create a habitat for plovers; they are one of those species...," Wilson said.

Sections of the National Park are closed to visitors during breeding season, but will be reopened now that breeding has been completed. The north six miles of the island and bay shoreline were opened Aug. 7 and the southern six miles within the over-sand vehicle recreational zone is expected to re-open on Aug. 13.

 

 

An adult piping plover stands over its nest of eggs. Plovers became a protected species in 1986.

[Diamondwrapper]

They pick up turtle eggs and hatch them, pick up the plover eggs and hatch them. This is not rocket science.

[Salt T]

They pick up turtle eggs and hatch them, pick up the plover eggs and hatch them. This is not rocket science.

 

 

Yeah, now that Obam is going to be President, I think I'll get in line behind everyone else with their hand out and get some federal money to set up a breeding program. I'll set it up as a non-profit and pay myself a huge salary. That way the beaches will remain open and I can fish when and where I want to. Hmmmmm.....

[Possum]

yeah...hand the first clutch of eggs over to a well adjusted Eastern Shore Poultry expert and get thousands of the critters in short order

 

Birders hate this idea.They love everything about the Piping Plovers....birders especially love the fact that Piping Plovers are extremely scarce and require breeding habitat that is extremely rare.This kinda stuff really turns them on.Birders would totally lose interest in these "exotic" little shorebirds if they were commonplace and learned to coexist with people.