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John Shibley / Lake Superior State University
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Researchers are monitoring piping plovers like this one on lakes Superior and Michigan.
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Piping plovers have been setting up nesting areas under the watchful eyes of university researchers in Michigan’s eastern Upper Peninsula and nearby shoreline areas of Ontario.
Biologist Jason Garvon of Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and his wife, biologist Shannon Rowell-Garvon from Algoma University across the bridge in Ontario, have been guiding a team of students conducting surveys and monitoring and protecting piping plover nests.
Piping plovers like to nest on wide, bare and remote shorelines in the Great Lakes. The project on beaches in southern Lake Superior and northern Lake Michigan aims to help the endangered bird’s survival, and includes captive rearing and control of invasive species for better reproductive success and nesting habitat.
The researchers set up nest enclosures to protect nesting plovers from predators and still allow the birds to get on and off the nests.
The plovers are showing up elsewhere, too. On Lake Superior’s western tip, the St. Louis River Alliance is watching for piping plovers after one was spotted on Minnesota Point in June.
The alliance is monitoring the birds on the beaches of Minnesota Point and Wisconsin Point during spring migration and summer nesting to keep detailed records of numbers, locations and behavior. The group is working with federal and state agencies to create an attractive nesting area for this bird that’s rare in the Great Lakes.