Piping Plovers Fledge, Outer Banks Beaches Open Again
The Bodie Island Spit on the north side of Oregon Inlet is open to humans again. The beach was closed to all human activity while some Piping Plovers reared their chicks. With the fledging of the Piping Plover chicks the breeding season has officially been declared closed.
Through all of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore System there was a total of 11 Piping Plover nests located with 6 of those nests surviving that produced seventeen chicks. Only 4 of those chicks survived long enough to learn to fly. Given such poor reproduction rates, the Piping Plover apparently has some problems not related to human activity.
I hope someone is doing some research to try to find out why these birds are having such a difficult time with reproduction. So far the only answer I have heard is that it is the fault of human activity. But even with the beaches closed to human activity these birds are still having difficulty reproducing.
I suspect pollution might be one factor contributing to the problem. The beaches where these birds nest and forage for food is covered with oil slicks left over from the world wars.
Another factor might be the sand dunes. These unnatural dunes have created beaches that are closer to the ocean than the natural long flat beaches that existed prior to the dune’s construction in the 1930s. The small beaches leave the nests vulnerable to ocean over wash and concentrate the nests in a smaller area which leaves them more vulnerable to predation.
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