Alliance for a Living Ocean

2007 Long Beach Boulevard
North Beach Haven, New Jersey 08008
Mail: P.O. Box 95, Ship Bottom, NJ 08008
(609) 492-0222
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Piping Plover Summary - Holgate 1998

by Vinnie Turner
Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge

Whether it's good or bad, the piping plovers and their activities at Holgate always gives the refuge something to talk about after the birds' nesting season is completed. The season started off as usual with the first plovers being observed on the 26th of March. Throughout April, plover numbers increased and pairs were beginning to establish territories for their nesting activities. The first nest found at Holgate was on May 5th, roughly 13,000 feet south of the Holgate boundary. By the end of the month, nine nests were established with one of those nests unfortunately being lost to an unknown cause.

Things appeared to be progressing rather smoothly until about the middle of June. For all plover nests that are found each year, we erect wire fencing around each nest for protection from predators, both avian and mammalian. Within a two day period, and for the first time ever on Holgate, a fox dug under the wire enclosure and predated upon the plover nests. In all, eight nests were lost due to the actions of this fox. Strangely, there were other enclosed nests nearby that weren't even looked at.

There have been recorded reports of this type of predation throughout the plovers nesting range, but after seven years of enclosure use in Holgate, this is a first. After assessing the damage, it was decided that permanent removal of the foxes would be the best thing for the well being of the plovers. A contract was drawn up with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal Damage Control to assist the refuge in removing this problem. Because of the potential of spreading rabies to other areas by transplanting the foxes somewhere else, all the foxes caught were humanely dispatched. In all, 13 foxes were removed from Holgate. No other nests were lost to foxes for the rest of the season.

Because the nest loss by the fox occurred early into the nesting cycle, almost all of the pairs that lost nests were able to re-nest. The first hatching of nests occurred on July 6th with two hatching on the same day. Through the rest of the month, nests continued to hatch out with the final hatching being on July 27th. In all 26 nests were established (including re-nests, and of those, 13 nests successfully hatched. From those successful hatches, 34 chicks were observed and of those, 15 successfully reached the fledgling stage. We estimate that all these chicks were produced from 17 pairs of plovers. For the first time in several years, all but one of the 26 plover nests were located 12,000 feet south from the refuge boundary. Because the majority of plovers nested on the southern end of Holgate, monitoring the progress of the chicks proved to be a daunting task. But with the dedicated assistance of students from the Americorp program, all the plovers were accounted for. The last of the recorded chicks (3) fledged on August 21st.

In comparison to last season, three additional pairs of plovers used Holgate as their breeding grounds. Total productivity for each nesting pair was 0.88. The Atlantic Coast Piping Plover Recovery Plan estimates that a productivity of 1.5 chicks per nesting pair throughout the Atlantic flyway would keep the population stable as well as showing a slight increase. As of press time, the productivity for the entire state of New Jersey is at 1.0 chick per pair. Would Holgate's productivity be higher if the fox predation didn't occur? That is anybody's guess. But even with the early season setback, the resiliency of the plovers to produce more chicks than last season indicates a good sign of better things to come. With stepped up efforts in predator control during the off season, productivity numbers can only go up in the following years. Overall grade for Holgate plover activity for 1998: a solid B.

The trend continues to baffle everyone here at the refuge. Once again, no populations of nesting least terns or black skimmers used Holgate as their breeding grounds this year. It wasn't long ago when Holgate was one of the largest breeding areas for these two species in the entire state. What's ironic is that at Holgate, more nesting habitat is naturally becoming available to these species. Apparently, these birds see something in or around the habitat that we humans do not. There is no indication that this situation is going to improve anytime soon. However, we at the E.B. Forsythe refuge will continue to provide the protection of Holgate to give the piping plover, least tern and black skimmer the best possible opportunities to increase their total population numbers, both for the State and the Atlantic flyway.