By Jon Hurdle, Inside Climate News
A coalition of nonprofit and government agencies have found ways to protect and increase the American oystercatcher population.
Fifteen years of coordinated conservation efforts have produced a significant recovery in the U.S. population of the American oystercatcher, a bird with a distinctive bright red bill that breeds and roosts on beaches and coastal marshes, at a time when most shorebirds are declining.
The American Oystercatcher Recovery Campaign, a coalition of about 40 conservation private nonprofits and government agencies across the United States, reported a 45 percent increase in the number of oystercatchers from 2008 to 2023, bringing the total population to an estimated 14,735 birds.
Before the campaign, oystercatcher numbers were declining amid commercial development of Atlantic and Gulf beaches and as nesting areas were disturbed by car traffic and, in some cases, dogs roaming off leash.
The gain reflects a successful effort to restrict public access to some beaches and marshes at breeding times and to convince beachgoers to respect the birds’ habitat. The bird’s numbers are counted in part by trained observers flying over wintering flocks in a light plane, taking photographs and physically counting the birds. Those estimates are checked against counts made by campaign members who observe the birds on the ground or from boats.
The campaign is now seen as a model for the protection of other shorebird species that are declining in number such as the whimbrel, a long-billed shorebird that lives in beaches and mudflats, and the ruddy turnstone, a small shore bird with a chestnut-colored back.
“This program really is a striking conservation success,” said Lindsay Addison, a coastal biologist at Audubon North Carolina, a coalition partner. “It is incredibly difficult to turn a species around, especially one that is not the fastest-growing species. They don’t start to breed right away; they don’t produce a dozen young. It’s a great story because it shows that we can make a difference.”
But the recovery of the oystercatcher could still be slowed by climate change effects such as sea-level rise that floods beaches and marshes and the increasing frequency and ferocity of storms.
“The biggest concern at the moment is habitat loss,” said Shiloh Schulte, senior shorebird scientist at Manomet Conservation Sciences, a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that leads the campaign. “Oystercatchers nest on beaches and in salt marshes within a few feet of the high-tide mark. So as seas rise, storms worsen and coastal erosion gets worse, a lot of these sites that they are relying on for nesting and roosting are beginning to disappear. That’s a major concern. Plus there’s increased competition from humans for these same areas such as coastal Virginia, New Jersey and Louisiana. We see that as an existential threat to all of the work we’ve done to recover the species.”
Current uncertainty over funding for federal partners such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service, both key participants in the campaign, also could curb the conservation group’s ability to sustain the recent gains—or to share its proven method to protect other species.
“Our federal partners are reeling now from the park closures, workforce reductions, the refuges not being staffed appropriately,” Schulte said. “It’s definitely going to affect our ability to manage this.”
Schulte predicted that the protection efforts will survive because of the large number of non-federal partners involved. But he warned the campaign’s effectiveness could be reduced because some state and private organizations rely in part on federal funds, he said.
The campaign achieved a 20 percent increase in oystercatcher numbers by its 10-year anniversary in 2018. That fell short of a planned 30 percent increase but the group, over the next five years, recorded a notable recovery.
Still, the oystercatcher experience is rare.
From 1980 to 2019, 26 out of 28 other U.S. shorebird species declined in number, according to a study published by the journal Ornithological Applications. More than half the species lost more than half their populations, and most declines are accelerating. The species—including the buff-breasted sandpiper and the piping plover—now have populations that exceed the criteria for a “threatened species” listing under the federal Endangered Species Act, the study said.
Shorebirds, and birds in general, are especially visible representatives of broader biodiversity loss, which the study described as a “wicked problem, with complex and interrelated causes, and solutions requiring a balance of competing interests.”
The oystercatcher campaign has partners in every Atlantic Coast state including Massachusetts, where it engages with five private nonprofits and government agencies to educate the public, limit disturbances from people or traffic during breeding times at bird habitats, control invasive species and shoot predators such as coyotes. In Connecticut, the campaign works with the state’s Audubon Society on Long Island Sound. In New Jersey, the program joins with three local partners at wildlife refuges..
Key to the campaign’s success has been its ability to persuade the public to navigate away from nesting areas in the spring and summer.
Beach users have responded well when informed about the risk to the birds, Schulte said, and many dog owners keep their pets from the delicate habitat. Most drivers appear to have accepted that they will be excluded from some areas of beach at certain times of year, he said.
“There are people out there who would like no restrictions whatsoever and don’t particularly care about the birds, but since the policy has been enacted in a consistent way over the last 10 years or so, people get used to it. Then it’s much less of a controversial issue,” he said.
When possible, field workers attach transmitters to oystercatcher chicks in order to track their survival or, in some cases, their deaths from being run over by vehicles. But campaigners recognize that people want to enjoy their coastal retreats and they have found ways to encourage friendly cooperation.
“It’s important not to be draconian and seek to eliminate the activity altogether, just during the period when the birds are nesting,” Schulte said. “We’re trying to do it in a way that has the least impact on humans but the best outcome for the birds. It’s less about enforcement and more about engagement. That’s always the goal: to grow the base of supporters for wildlife.”
Addison of Audubon North Carolina said the campaign to limit some beach access, for the most part, makes sense to beachgoers.
“The vast majority of the people accept it with no problems. Some of them will even yell at the people who don’t. That’s when you can tell if you’ve succeeded,” she said. “The user group is saying ‘We like that there are birds here, and we don’t want you to do anything that would jeopardize that.’”