As a group, beach-nesting birds are among the most threatened of all migratory birds. Of the 51 species that breed in North America, 22 are declining in population.
Our Beach-nesting Birds Program continues to work to bring back populations of declining shorebirds, including Black Skimmers, Least Terns, and Wilson’s and Snowy Plovers, on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
We had good success in 2014 by protecting key breeding sites for Gulf beach-nesting birds in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and we started expanding into Alabama. Highlights included:
We monitored 1,264 beach-nesting birds’ nests and over 1,800 breeding pairs. In Galveston, Texas, we documented three Snowy Plover pairs that produced three fledges. These are the first pairs documented to produce fledges on the upper Texas coast in the past five years.
Key partners in our Gulf Coast Beach-nesting birds program include Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program, Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, Houston Audubon, Galveston Park Board of Trustees, Audubon Louisiana, Louisiana State Parks, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Alabama State Parks, and Eckerd College.
Learn more on our “Help Gulf Birds” site.
South of the U.S. border, our efforts to benefit migratory shorebirds are also taking off:
We also work closely with federal and local governments to reduce the presence of invasive species on islands, fence off important sandbars from predators, and limit access to islands that provide important nesting habitat.