![]() ![]() What the broader tensions highlight, the people who have helped pull them back from the brink say, is a choice - not between a bird’s life and a human’s life, but between a bird’s life and a human’s desire to walk a dog on certain beaches without a leash. ![]() “Visitors to the shoreline will still need to behave in a way that’s respectful and doesn’t disturb, harass, or take any piping plovers,” said Cooper, of The Nature Conservancy.Ī sign at Mouth of the Narrow River beach in Narragansett, R.I. The Endangered Species Act is still the Endangered Species Act, and it still lists piping plovers threatened. The new law won’t change anything about the management of piping plovers. People who spend time conserving these birds are keeping an eye on potential conflicts. How will piping plover conservation interact with Rhode Island’s new law giving people the right to access the shore if they’re within 10 feet of the recognizable high tide line? That new access line is much further up the beach than the mean high tide line. A swath of the beach there is controlled by the federal government as a wildlife refuge down to the mean high tide line - and marked off there with posts and ropes to protect the birds’ nesting spots. Moonstone Beach, meanwhile, is more secluded from human contact. But one man pulled up in his kayak at a respectful distance and told The Nature Conservancy and the Fish & Wildlife Service that he loved seeing those birds. In their own way, each illuminated the promise and the challenges of Rhode Island’s piping plovers.Īt the heavily trafficked Narrow River site, leftover evidence of a beach fire smoldered in the sand. The US Fish & Wildlife Service and The Nature Conservancy Rhode Island, which each plays a role in piping plover conservation in the state, along with the Department of Environmental Management, recently took The Boston Globe on a tour of two piping plover sites - the one at the Narrow River and another on Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown. Then the ruse is up: They fly off just before the snap of the jaws. The adults demonstrate their devotion to their chicks with a “broken wing” display, where they’ll pretend their wing is broken to get predators to chase them, instead of the offspring. Like some humans, they winter in the south, from the Carolinas to the Caribbean. Some people pronounce them “ploe-ver,” but it’s also fun to pronounce it as if it rhymes with “lover.” Weighing just 2 ounces, the adults look like their beaks are dipped in ink, with a curved black streak across the brow. Grey means there is no current water quality information, the beach is under construction, there has been an event that has rendered water quality information unreliable or unavailable.A piping plover chick on Moonstone Beach in South Kingston R.I. Red means the water at the site has water quality issues or there is an emergency. This status does not indicate current water quality. This means that this site has been issued a Blue Flag status for the current swimming season. We may manually set the status for a specific beach if we have concerns about the sampling protocol, if there is an emergency, if monitoring practices don't exist or have recently changed, or other reasons that render this site "special." Red means the beach failed water quality tests 40% of the time or more. Yellow means the beach passed water quality tests 60-95% of the time. ![]() Green means the beach passed water quality tests 95% of the time or more. This means that rather than displaying current data it displays the beach's average water quality for that year. When swimming season is over or when a beach's water quality data has not been updated frequently enough (weekly) it goes into historical status. Grey means water quality information for the beach is too old (more than 7 days old) to be considered current, or that info is unavailable, or unreliable. Red means the beach’s most recent test results failed to meet water quality standards. ![]() Green means the beach’s most recent test results met relevant water quality standards. ![]()
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