[Bristol-Birds] Piping Plover SHL: More background and helpful researchers

From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 16:43:06 -0400
The Piping Plover found 2 September 2014 at Musick's Campground on South
Holston Lake in Sullivan Co., TN: 

 

"... may be the first plover from Nebraska that's been seen in Tennessee so
this is an exciting report." -- Mary Bomberger Brown, an Assistant Research
Professor at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.

 

Her comments are obviously in reference to birds seen with a color flag
and/or color bands. 

 

In a follow-up telephone conversation Thursday, she said she has searched
the data at hand and finds no such previous records.

 

She joined the Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership as Program
Coordinator in 2007.  Prior to that she held research positions at
Princeton, Yale and Tulsa universities and conducted research at the
University of Nebraska's Cedar Point Biological Station for 25 years.
Piping Plover Mary Brown of U of Nebraska Lincoln 2014.jpgA native of
Nebraska, Mary earned B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln.  With her husband, Charles, she has been prolific
publishing in such journals as Animal Behaviour, The Auk, Behavioral
Ecology, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, The Condor, Ecology, Nature,
Science, Evolution, and Trends in Ecology & Evolution. Their scientific
productivity has been voluminous: they have jointly published more than 120
articles, and citations of these articles by scientists throughout the world
have been copious. Charles and Mary's research has changed the way that
ornithologists and behavioral ecologists think about the costs and benefits
of coloniality.

 

She received the 2009 Elliott Coues Medal from the American Ornithologists'
Union in recognition of outstanding and innovative contributions to
ornithological research.  In addition to research, she teaches ornithology
at Nebraska.

 

She is program coordinator for the Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership
at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's School of Natural Resources.

 

The partnership works to protect endangered interior Least Terns and
threatened Piping Plovers in Nebraska.  They do this by reducing the
likelihood of conflicts developing between people and birds and  increasing
the amount of habitat available to nesting birds.  This includes work at
sand and gravel mines, lake shore housing developments and dredging
operations along the Lower Platte River, Loup River, Elkhorn River and work
on sandbars in these rivers. 

 

Virginia Tech researchers reported the South Holston plover as marked along
the Missouri River near Yankton, SD in June 2014.  Mary explained that the
state line between South Dakota and Nebraska is along the river for many
miles and birds marked as part of research projects along the river are
generally considered to have been in Nebraska as well as South Dakota.
Virginia Tech researchers provided Yankton as a nearby local community that
could be located on a map.  VT did not indicate which state the South
Holston-seen bird had been banded.

 

Yankton is a city with a population of 14,000 located on the Missouri River
just downstream of the Gavins Point Dam and Lewis and Clark Lake.

 

 

Piping Plover type sandbars Missouri River SD NE 2014.jpgMuch of Virginia
Tech's funded research deals with a major area of  artificial and natural
sandbars on the Missouri River  The Missouri River near Vermillion is a
natural oasis on a heavily managed river and is part of the Missouri River
National Recreational River.  The Gavins Point Reach of the river is one of
the last free-flowing stretches, and offers those that look a glimpse of
Lewis and Clark's River.  

 

The Virginia Tech Shorebird Program expanded to the US Great Plains in 2001.
Jim Fraser and Danielle LeFer initiated study of piping plover chick growth
and survival in relation to water management. Water levels and releases are
managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and pursuant to the
Endangered Species Act they are actively engaged in research and management
to contribute to the recovery of threatened piping plovers and endangered
interior least terns. As result of dams installed in the mid-20th century,
mid-channel sandbar habitat has declined in quality (vegetation encroachment
and erosion of wet surfaces where plovers forage) and quantity, resulting in
a decline in the numbers of both species using riverine habitat.

 

Since 2001 Virginia Tech has worked closely with the USACE, the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and state agencies in North
Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska, delivering timely research to answer
pressing questions for the conservation community. 

 

Wallace Coffey

Bristol, TN
[Bristol-Birds] Piping Plover SHL: More background and helpful researchers

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