Stretch of beach at Cape Henlopen State Park closed to safeguard nesting piping plovers
LEWES (May 18, 2015) – The first piping plover nest of the season at Gordons Pond Beach in Cape Henlopen State Park has been discovered, with the parents-to-be defending their territory, DNREC Wildlife Biologist Matthew Bailey announced today. Plover monitors found the nest late last week.
To minimize disturbances to the tiny shorebirds, a half-mile stretch of beach between the Observation Towers and the Herring Point crossover will be closed to the public beginning Wednesday, May 20, with signs, twine and PVC stakes to mark the area.
“Closing off plover nesting areas is an established protocol every year at Cape Henlopen, and this closing is in the traditional nesting area that beachgoers are accustomed to,” said Bailey, who serves as coordinator of the Division of Fish & Wildlife’s Piping Plover Protection Program. “The area will remain closed until the last of our plover chicks are fledged, usually in late August.”
For more information on piping plovers and volunteer opportunities, please contact Matthew Bailey, Division of Fish and Wildlife, at 302-382-4151 or email matthew.bailey@state.de.us.
About the piping plover
The piping plover was listed as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1986, and the Division of Fish and Wildlife is responsible for its protection in Delaware. Under a binding agreement and subsequent species management plan that DNREC made in 1990 with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the federal agency with oversight of this ESA-protected species, piping plover nesting areas at Cape Henlopen State Park are closed annually to the public to protect the shorebirds from disturbance during their nesting season which usually runs from March into September. This includes the Point and smaller areas around Gordon’s Pond. The closure has been successful, increasing the number of piping plover nesting pairs from a low of two pairs to a high of nine pairs, and must include feeding habitat as well as nesting areas. Piping plovers feed on small invertebrates that inhabit the intertidal zone near their nesting territories. Chicks are not fed by their parents, but rather are led to the shoreline to forage while the adults keep watch for potential threats. Allowing pedestrian traffic in the intertidal zone adjoining nesting areas would disturb the vital link between nesting and foraging habitat and risk adverse stress or mortality to the chicks.