The Sacramento Bee/Associated Press, 3/6/16. "Snowy plovers spotted in record numbers in San Francisco."
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| Tiny Western snowy plover with chicks |
The population has remained steady with about 2,100 white-breasted shorebirds living in the West Coast, said Andrea Jones, director of bird conservation for Audubon California. 'The population hasn't been increasing or decreasing as a general trend,' Jones said. 'That is both good and bad. There is a ton that goes into protecting these birds in their nesting habitats. At the same time, the population isn't getting to where it needs to be.'
.... The 6-inch shorebird with dark patches on its back — with 85 percent in California, and some in Oregon and Washington — remains threatened by habitat loss, predation and human population growth, experts said. ....It has been tough for the species to recover because the snowy plover breeds and overwinters in different places, said Cindy Margulis, executive director of the Golden Gate Audubon Society. The birds breed in coastal dune habitats in areas like Monterey and the Point Reyes National Seashore, and then rest in San Francisco during July through April." Read more.
Related article. Golden Gate Birder (Audubon), Lizzie Johnson, 3/5/16, "Record number of Snowy Plovers on Ocean Beach." .... 104, 'That’s a record number since the Park Service began observing and monitoring the population in 1994, a year after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the species as threatened. .... Most of our birds come from around Monterey, though we do get a few from Oregon or farther south, like Santa Barbara,' he (Dan Murphy) said. 'They had a really good reproductive year which far exceeded previous years. This is really unusual, and it’s very exciting.'
Murphy said he spotted around 50 snowy plovers on Ocean Beach at the end of February — a sign of a successful nesting season."
Note photograph from Coal Oil Point Reserve.UC Santa Barbara Natural Reserve System, 7/18/08.
Posted by Kathy Meeh
Posted by Kathy Meeh
1 comment:
Any time there is a decrease in plover counts, dogs get blamed. It follows that since dogs have not yet been banned from Ocean Beach but will be banned in the forthcoming GGNRA Dog Management Plan, one of the following must be true with respect to the reported increase in plovers at OB:
1. Plovers have actually read the proposed 2016 GGNRA DMP and feel a sense of safety at Ocean Beach knowing that dogs will be banned from there in the future.
2. The presence of dogs at Ocean Beach is actually a deterrent to the real predators of the plover giving them a real sense of safety.
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