An impossible challenge

Test_Scrape

At our recent National Conference (June 13-14 2014), I gave a talk called ‘Conquering the Impossible: Eight years of recovering the Hooded Plover’.

I called it this because when I first started working at BirdLife Australia on the Beach-nesting Birds project (which previously had a mouthful of a title: ‘Promoting coexistence between recreationists and beach-nesting birds!’), this is how it appeared. A bird that nests on the beach or dunes, with a highly exposed simple scrape of a nest, and eggs directly where human feet would step... it seemed terrifying to think that we had to find:

a. volunteers who would monitor the birds and find these well-camouflaged nests;

b. people to protect the nests with signage and fencing (which aren’t easy to carry for miles along a beach in all sorts of weather conditions), and;

c. that we needed the beach-using public to care about the birds and to alter the way they have been using beaches for centuries (before we knew the impact we were having!) The whole suite of threats facing these birds seemed overwhelming.

If you think of a beach in spring and summer you might think of the usual suspects: swimmers, walkers, families, surfers, dog walkers, people fishing. These people might inadvertently step on nests or newly hatched chicks. Dogs might chase and kill the chicks over their five flightless weeks before fledging.

Then there is disturbance, the hidden killer! The cryptic nature of the birds means they will distance themselves from their nests and chicks to let camouflage protect their location – a strategy that has evolved from generations of exposure to native predators. In a current beach environment, people and dogs are perceived as predators, and so one person spending too long near to a nest, or multiple people/dogs passing by and cumulatively disturbing the birds, can result in eggs baking on the sand, or chicks hiding and dying of exposure.

You might also think of egg and chick predators like foxes prowling the beach at night, feral cats, silver gulls, ravens and birds of prey like kestrels. But then you mightn’t think of all the other threats that are an issue, such as horse riding on beaches, vehicles using beaches (well Victorians wouldn’t think of this one!), camels and even feral pigs on beaches!

There are the dangers of entanglement with disused fishing line and fibres from commercial fishing nets. There are the links between litter and elevated population numbers of ravens and gulls.

Weeds in the dune system, often planted there by coastal managers to combat sand movement (a natural process in a beach system), leading to loss of nesting habitat and altered dune structures. This in turn, meaning the birds feel an even greater ‘coastal squeeze’, with threats coming from land and sea.

So where do we start, how do we turn this around – is the problem not too big?

No way!

It has been an eight year journey so far, with the foundations for much of the monitoring extending back further into the early 1980s. Eight years of generating volunteer action and providing the tools and knowledge for land managers and coastal communities to improve the plight of these birds.

And we have done it!

It takes a long time to change attitudes towards beaches when these have been perceived as places of recreation for so long, but finally people expect wildlife to be present – they are happy to adapt their behaviour and share the beach with the birds, coexisting side by side.

Slowly the message filters across communities and to visitors and tourists, and awareness grows. Volunteers get hooked by the tenacity of these little birds that battle against the odds, and this gives them equal tenacity to do the same!

One person inspires the next, and so on, and the program has become incredibly resilient and adaptive.

Every day we learn something new – we build our network and don’t reinvent the wheel, but share our experiences and become a well-oiled machine!!!

Hooded Plovers have ceased their rapid spiral of a decline. We are managing to add double the number of fledglings to the population each season. We are even seeing new birds set up territories on beaches where there have been no hoodies for over 15-10 years! This is all with considerable input from over 600 volunteers and a nationally coordinated program, but these efforts are paying off in terms of conservation outcomes. This is one species we can make a difference to!

Dr Grainne Maguire, MyHoodie Data Portal Blog, June 19 2014