Canadian conservationists call for more protection of the piping plover in its Caribbean wintering grounds

Piping plover. Image credit: Billtacular
Biodiversity

Cross-border conservation cooperation is essential for the preservation of migratory species like the piping plover, which spends summers in North America and winters in the Caribbean. Canada’s CBC News reports that Canadian conservationists want more protection of the plover in its winter habitats:

It’s a mystery with enormous consequences for the survival of a species: where do piping plovers from eastern Canada go when they head south for the winter?

Shannon Mader, species at risk co-ordinator with P.E.I.’s Island Nature Trust, said despite the efforts to protect them on their northern breeding grounds, “we’re still not seeing a recovery.”

“So we do believe that something is happening during migration or over winter.”

A study by Environment Canada that began in 2013, which included putting tiny bands on the plovers, has started to turn up clues as to where the plovers go.

P.E.I. plovers have been spotted this winter in the Bahamas, the southern states of Georgia, Florida, North and South Carolina as well as, for the first time, Bermuda.

“It’s so nice to hear, you can picture them down there on the beach with the palm trees,” Mader said.

But some may not be making it back. The number of plovers in eastern Canada is declining — a 37 per cent drop over the last 10 years — said Jen Rock, wildlife biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Sackville N.B.

On P.E.I., there is a guardian program to protect the piping plovers and their habitat. Rock would like to see similar efforts in the Caribbean.

“Some groups are working towards initiating very similar sort of guardian programs down south, for example, in the Bahamas, but certainly it’s absent across most of the Caribbean,” she said.

“Anything to protect these birds would make a difference and would potentially help the population.”

“I think we here on the breeding grounds tend to think of them as our birds, these are P.E.I. piping plovers, but they spend more than half the year somewhere else,” Mader said.

“We can put all of this effort in here on the breeding grounds but if there’s no protection on the wintering grounds then they’re incredibly fragile.”

Read more in the full article from CBC News.

 

[Image credit: Billtacular]

No Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

CCI-CBF Week 2020.
Biodiversity
CCI-CBF Week: Nature-Based Solutions for our Caribbean Future

The Caribbean Challenge Initiative (CCI) and the Caribbean Biodiversity Fund (CBF) will be hosting the 2020 instalment of their annual CCI-CBF Week as a virtual event this year, from July 13 to 16, 2020. The theme of the 2020 CCI-CBF week is Nature-Based Solutions for our Caribbean Future, and there …

Parrotfish. Image: Acquarius Sea Tours
Biodiversity
Conserving fish biodiversity helps protect coral reef health

Research from the Dominican Republic shows how greater fish biodiversity makes for healthier coral reefs: The health of coral reefs can be impacted as much by the diversity of fish that graze on them as by the amount of fish that do so, according to a new study by scientists …

Stony coral tissue loss disease. Image: via US NOAA
Biodiversity
3
Stony coral tissue loss disease spreads through the northern Caribbean

In recent weeks both St. Maarten and the US Virgin Islands have reported cases of stony coral tissue loss disease. The first incidence of stony coral tissue loss disease was recorded in 2014 in Miami-Dade county in Florida, and the disease has since spread south through the Florida Keys. Outbreaks …