Press of Atlantic City: Locals band together to protect rare beach nesting species

By Bill Barlow, Staff Writer

Read this article in the Atlantic City Press here.

Least terns are among the beach nesting birds in New Jersey. They rely on camouflage for protection, but most have vulnerable chicks just as local beaches see thousands of human visitors. • Bill Barlow photos, Staff Writer

UPPER TOWNSHIP — For eons, the ability of piping plovers, terns and other beach nesting birds to blend in with the sand has served as protection from predators.

Their coloring hid them so well as to make them all but invisible.

But with their nesting season overlapping the massive migration of human visitors to New Jersey beaches each summer, their extraordinary camouflage is as likely to get them stepped on as it is to save them from a fox or a crow.

“They’re really tiny,” said Deb Rivel, a wildlife film producer who spends her summers and part of some winters in the beachside village of Strathmere in Upper Township. “I’m used to looking at them and I don’t even see them sometimes.”

This year, for the first time in many summers, two pairs of plovers nested on the beach in Strathmere. Rivel believes this is the first time that has happened since Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Rivel has long been fascinated by the birds and sought to protect them. This year, with two nests in her own town, she helped launch The Strathmere Plover Project, with the aim of protecting those nests and the other beach nesting species in the area, the least tern.

Strathmere community members, area birdwatchers and beach lovers take shifts to keep people and dogs out of the roped-off nesting area in the north end of town. Members of the Strathmere Improvement Association take shifts, as do volunteer firefighters and others.

“We have a big contingent in the surfing community. Those guys see everything and they love nature,” Rivel said. She described the response from the community as enthusiastic. The volunteers point out the plovers and terns and try to give passersby a sense of how rare the birds are, with only a few thousand in existence in the world.

According to Christina Davis, a wildlife biologist with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, there were 103 pairs of piping plover nesting the length of New Jersey. This year looked set for an increase in that number. She said there are nests in Stone Harbor and in the natural areas in the north and south ends of Ocean City.

A significant number are in Atlantic County, in the wild north end of Brigantine, in the Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge near Smithville and in the Malibu Beach Wildlife Management Area between Somers Point and Longport, an area that has become better known as dog beach than as a nesting site for a rare bird.

Volunteers have long watched over the birds nesting in the Corson’s Inlet State Park in the south end of Ocean City, Davis said, but she is hopeful about a home-grown volunteer effort to watch over the birds such as in Strathmere.

“It’s wonderful. We couldn’t be more pleased with it,” she said Friday.

She said Rivel had organized nature walks and advocated for plover protection.

“This year she decided to try to take it to the next level,” Davis said.

The township has also cooperated, Rivel said, closing off the beach entrances at Seacliff and Seaview avenues until the chicks fledge.

Although dogs are not allowed on the Strathmere beach in the summer, many people walk their dogs on the beach anyway, before the lifeguards go on duty. She said the volunteers try to redirect them away from the nesting area, where even the friendliest dog can be devastating.ubscribe for only $1*

“For the most part, people have been just great,” she said.

Not everyone welcomes nesting birds, volunteers confided when gathered on the beach on an overcast Friday morning. An earlier rainstorm meant few people were on the beach or in the waves, but crowds were expected over the July 4 weekend.

“It’s controversial,” said Len Wilson, a Strathmere summer resident. Others said people have told them there are only a few birds and hundreds of homeowners, and argued that people should be allowed to run their dogs, shoot off fireworks and otherwise enjoy their summer.

“We’re all for people enjoying the beach,” said Rivel. She just wants them to allow space for the birds as well.

Stories about wildlife do not always have happy endings.

According to Davis, a large number of nesting pairs of piping plovers was anticipated statewide due to a warm early spring which brought the birds to the beach earlier than usual. The warm spring meant the chicks could be ready to fly in early July when the beaches see the most intense use. Davis described it as close to ideal.

But a northeast storm over Memorial Day weekend shattered those hopes. Nests were overwashed by tides or blown by strong winds.

“There are many reasons those birds are endangered,” Davis said. “We lost two-thirds of what we had on the ground.”

In Strathmere, Rivel reports, one of the two nests was damaged and abandoned. That left one pair, with birds she nicknamed Cliff and Celia. She watched that second nest through the storm, and said the mother hung on throughout.

“I thought it was a lump of sand. It was not. It was Celia,” she said. The pair of birds protected the nest well enough to see all four eggs hatch.

Tiny, fluffy and almost invisible, the four chicks almost immediately had to make the run from the nest at the back of the beach to the waterline to feed. But whether from predators or other dangers, the volunteers watched as they lost one chick after another. The final one died last week. The volunteers are not sure how, but Rivel described it as an emotional blow.

“It can be very frustrating,” said Davis.

Without any plovers, the Strathmere Plover Project now concentrates on the least tern, which Davis said faces many of the same threats. They nest directly on the beach and are easily disturbed. There are 12 nests along the same roped off area between the beach and dunes.

Strathmere volunteer Victoria Green said the team found beer cans and footprints close to one of the nest sites near Winthrop Road.

She said there appeared to have been a beach party within the roped-off protected area.

“Human disturbance is the biggest threat the beach nesting birds have,” said Rivel. At the same time, she sees a human fascination with the natural world, with visitors excited to see dolphins in the waves, the diamondback terrapins on the local streets and the shore birds on the beaches. She believes a greater awareness and appreciation of birds like the terns and plovers will lead people to better protect the environment as a whole.

“There’s an old slogan in conservation; ‘Share the shore.’ I think that’s at the heart of all of this,” Davis said. “We have to try to balance the human recreational need with what these birds need to survive.”