Pipers at the Gates of Extinction
The piping plover is endangered, but there are signs of hope
By: Rick Burkman
Pipers at the Gates of Extinction
Monty and Rose shut down a music festival in Chicago Nellie and Nish took Ohio by storm when they raised a family there for the first time in 80 years and New York Citys Rockaway Beach closes to humans every summer. All thanks to an unassuming, two-ounce shorebird called the piping plover (Charadrius melodus). Piping plovers prefer a long sand beach with a good mix of pebbles where they blend in perfectly with the background. Once relatively common, their populations declined in the late nineteenth century when stuffed birds mounted on enormous hats became the height of womens fashion.