Bahamas Piping Plover Project

Eleuthera Edition

By Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager
Stephanie Egger, Wildlife Biologist

Piping plover roosting beach on the island of Eleuthera, Bahamas.
Piping plover roosting beach on the island of Eleuthera, Bahamas.

Up until now, nearly all of our piping plover conservation work in the Bahamas has been focused on the island of Abaco.  One of the objectives of our Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund grant is to identify other islands and partners where and with whom the model we are developing on Abaco might be implemented as well.  With this in mind, we spent the past several days on the island of Eleuthera.

Although we believe the basic elements of our Abaco work are transferable to other islands, a “one size fits all” approach may not entirely work.  The various major islands are unified under the Bahamas flag, but each also has its own flavor, history, and way of life.  The best analogy would be that they operate much like the individual states in the U.S.

On Abaco, we have been partnering with Friends of the Environment, a non-profit organization with a strong education and outreach component to all of their work – not so different from what we do here at the Conserve Wildlife Foundation.  On Eleuthera we are hoping to partner with the Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) and The Island School.  Although education is at the core of their work as well, it is also different in that they carry out and support primary research and host visiting scientists and students at their campus. Continue reading “Bahamas Piping Plover Project”

Plovers in Paradise

The Bahamas Blog – Trip 1, Day 1

By Todd Pover, Beach Nesting Bird Project Manager and Stephanie Egger, Wildlife Biologist

BahamasFlyingToday we arrived on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas to start our piping plover project, which was made possible courtesy of a grant from the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. It was mostly a travel day to for us, nonetheless, still exciting  to finally be here to start a project that was has been over a year in the planning.

We will hit the ground running tomorrow with a visit to a local school, participation in a round table discussion with stakeholders on tidal flats conservation, a piping plover survey, and filming for an educational video. And that’s just the first day!

So while we still have time to catch our breath, this is a good opportunity to review the purpose of our trip here.  Over the course of the past two decades, considerable resources have been put into the recovery of the Atlantic Coast population of piping plover, a federally threatened species, with most of the effort taking place on the breeding grounds in the U.S and Canada. Recent research has revealed that the vast majority of the population winters in the Bahamas. Furthermore, there is a growing realization that recovery and long-term sustainability will only occur with full life cycle conservation – protection during the breeding, migration, and wintering phases of the piping plover’s life. Continue reading “Plovers in Paradise”