Endangered Piping Plover Gabby Back in Michigan to Breed, Nesting Site Closed to Visitors

Gabby, an endangered piping plover, has returned to Michigan to breed as officials have closed the nesting area to outsiders.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is keeping track of Gabby, the oldest Great Lakes piping plover still alive at 14 years old, who recently moved back to Michigan from Florida to start a family.

Her return is a huge relief for the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Team, and she serves as a symbol of the need to safeguard the environment and all of its inhabitants, particularly as Earth Day draws closer. Gabby's and other piping plovers' reappearance is encouraging evidence that the threatened species is slowly making a comeback.

Gabby's longevity gives hope for the survival and resiliency of Great Lakes plovers.

Gabby the Endangered Piping Plover

Environmental organizations assert that there are numerous ways in which human survival and the survival of birds like Gabby are intertwined.

According to the Endangered Species Coalition, when a species is listed as endangered, the ecosystem is deteriorating, and when one species goes extinct, other species that are crucial to human health, like plovers that help regulate crustacean and insect populations on beaches, also go extinct.

Scientists claim that Gabby has lived an impressive life. She travels by air twice a year, approximately 1,500 miles each way, departing Michigan for Florida in late August after nesting and fledging young, and returning in April. She has encountered numerous dangers along the way.

Adult piping plovers have yellow, orange, and red legs and a black band running from eye to eye across their foreheads, according to Great Lakes Piping Plovers. During the breeding season, males typically have a thicker chest band, which is a way for scientists to distinguish between the sexes.

The shorebirds nest and forage along sand and gravel beaches along the coast, blending in with their surroundings. They move quickly and feed on insects, marine worms, and crustaceans. Their bell-like whistles, which can be typically heard before seeing them, are another reason they are called "piping."

Conserving the Piping Plover Populations

Although piping plover populations have grown significantly in the Great Lakes basin for the last thirty years, with 75 breeding pairs in 2016, this is still insufficient, according to the recovery team studying them, to ensure the species' survival. A new threat to birds has been identified by the Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute: the merlin, a small falcon. Plovers breed in states like Michigan and spend the winters in places like Mexico, the Bahamas, and Cuba in the South.

Gabby is the final bird to have been fitted with a light green tracking band by Sleeping Bear Dunes wildlife biologist Vince Cavalieri, who has been researching the Great Lakes piping plover for ten years. The Sleeping Bear Dunes is a popular place for plovers to nest, which almost exclusively do so along the Great Lakes.

This is why some areas of Sleeping Bear Dune are closed to visitors. Birdwatchers can still view Gabby from a safe distance, but temporary boundaries with warning tape and signage have already been put up.

According to Cavalieri, piping plovers are also an umbrella species. Protecting piping plovers, a vital component of the Great Lakes coastal dune system also protects the ecosystem as a whole and the other species that rely on it. Therefore, the preservation of the piping plover has broad ramifications for conservation efforts in the area.

Helping a Species Recover

Environmental advocacy organizations are advising beachgoers to exercise caution as scientists research ways to save the species.

To demonstrate how reducing merlin and other nest predator populations could lessen the risk of the piping plover going extinct, researchers from Michigan State University and the University of Minnesota developed population models, Detroit Free Press reports.