‘Critical Habitat’ Areas for Piping Plover Under Review

They’re small birds in big trouble.

The piping plover, a squat, sandy-colored bird that spends its winters on the Gulf Coast, is a threatened species in this region, and endangered in its breeding grounds in the northern Great Plains, Great Lakes and Atlantic Coast.

To prevent the piping plover’s further depletion, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has designated certain tracts of land, including some portions of the Rio Grande Valley, as “critical habitat” for the threatened bird.

Now, the agency is revising those designations and seeking the public’s input.

Fish and Wildife officials are proposing 18 revamped critical habitat areas for the piping plover, all of them along the Texas coast from south of Houston to South Padre Island. These critical habitat designations add another layer of protection to a species already covered under the federal Endangered Species Act, said Dawn Whitehead, supervisory biologist at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s ecological services field office in Corpus Christi.

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I grew up on the Gulf Coast, and watching piping plovers run to and from the shore to the water as they hunt for food in the sand has always been one of my favorite parts of visiting the beach.

-Kitty Mowmow

Tagged as: Animals, Atlantic Coast, Birds, Corpus Christi, Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, Great Lakes, Great Plains, Gulf Coast, Houston, Piping Plovers, Rio Grande Valley, South Padre Island, Texas, Threatened Species, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service