Does anyone have any special interest in/information on the future of
piping plovers in Ohio?  They used to nest on Ohio beaches on Lake Erie,
with the last nest recorded in 1942. Now they are sought-after migrants
only.
        Beach protection projects (not, as I understand it, lower lake levels)
have served plovers in the upper Great Lakes well, and the overall
numbers of the midwestern population have experienced a satisfying
growth over the past couple of decades.
        Is it too much to hope for a piping plover nest here? We do have at
least one protected beach--at Cedar Point NWR, which seems to have
acceptable habitat.  Now that at Crane Creek the beach is part of a
Wildlife Area, perhaps it too may be more inviting to piping plovers, or
enhanced to do so. The habitat needs of human bathers and nesting
plovers have been too similar, but the conflict shouldn't exist here.
        With the habitat protected against human competitors, lake levels may
remain a problem. Are Ohio's protected beaches so narrow as a result of
those levels that they won't support breeding plovers? The Crane Creek
beach is pretty wide, but much of it is shaded by big cottonwoods--would
this be a problem? As for Cedar Point, has anyone considered relocating
dredged sand there to restore plover/common tern habitat? Both used to
nest there, the terns in the thousands.
        High lake levels are often invoked to explain low numbers of migrant
shorebirds, as well as to justify the nearly-complete armoring of the
Lake Erie shore in the western basin by stone dikes, but warming--call
it "moderation" if you like--of the climate will lead to much lower
levels in the decades to come, leaving the dikes as mere reminders of
mistakes, or if you insist necessities, of the past. Perhaps all we need
to restore these birds is simply to wait, and stay out of the way.
Bill Whan
Columbus


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