Endangered piping plovers have returned to P.E.I. for another breeding season

Thinh Nguyen · CBC News

· Posted: May 04, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 1 infinitesimal ago

As endangered piping plovers instrumentality to P.E.I. for different nesting season, determination are elemental things Islanders tin bash to assistance support these tiny formation birds.

The Committee connected the Status of Endangered Wildlife successful Canada has listed the piping plover arsenic endangered since 1985.

Jenna Cahill, coastal task manager astatine Island Nature Trust, said the birds usually permission P.E.I. successful precocious August for warmer wintertime locations similar the confederate U.S. oregon the Bahamas and instrumentality successful April.

This year, the archetypal piping plover on P.E.I. was spotted connected April 15 astatine Thunder Cove.

Cahill said less than 60 of these birds are typically seen connected the Island each year, with the low numbers mostly owed to quality disturbance. Here connected P.E.I., radical going to the formation tin encroach connected the abstraction the birds need to rise their young.

"They're precise delicate to disturbances, truthful adjacent if you cognize they're not being straight trampled connected oregon whatever, adjacent if you conscionable disturb them portion they're feeding, due to the fact that they person specified agelong migrations, conscionable that other vigor expenditure tin alteration the likelihood that they tin marque those agelong migrations," Cahill told CBC News.

Simple steps to help

Cahill said piping plovers are classified arsenic a conservation-dependent species, meaning they would go extinct without ongoing conservation efforts.

Thanks to efforts connected P.E.I. by Parks Canada and the Island Nature Trust, plover numbers person been holding comparatively dependable successful caller years, she said. But Islanders inactive person an important relation to play.

"The biggest happening we tin bash is conscionable beryllium mindful ... If determination are signs up, conscionable cognize that determination are plovers presents and you're astir apt not going to beryllium capable to spot them," she said.

"Keep your canine connected a leash, due to the fact that adjacent if you can't spot them, your canine astir apt can. And it's not a batch of enactment for a canine to pursuit aft a plover."

Another tip: Walk connected bedewed soil erstwhile you're astatine the beach.

"They usually nest successful the adust sand, and their nests are very, precise good camouflaged arsenic well. So if you conscionable locomotion connected the bedewed sand, you're benignant of reducing the accidental that you could accidentally measurement connected a nest oregon connected a bird," Cahill said.

She added that piping plovers often similar wide sandy beaches on P.E.I.'s North Shore.

Get progressive to assistance survey

Islanders tin besides assistance by joining the Coastal Guardian programme tally by Island Nature Trust.

Volunteers tin motion up to assistance survey beaches and coastal ecosystems crossed P.E.I. for taxon astatine hazard and show ecosystem health.

There are 2 streams that radical tin take, surveying for either slope swallows oregon piping plovers, based connected their interest, grooming level and location, Cahill said.

For those surviving adjacent beaches wherever piping plovers are often seen, volunteers are asked to spell retired astir erstwhile a week.

"They volition survey for piping plover and fundamentally conscionable supply america with updates arsenic to what they're doing, and speech to the nationalist and dispersed the word," said Cahill.

Islanders funny successful becoming a Coastal Guardian tin telephone oregon email Island Nature Trust to motion up.