Hundreds of Atlantic Piping Plovers Are Missing After Hurricane Matthew
Areas of the Bahamas where populations of the birds overwinter were decimated by the October storm.
By the time Hurricane Matthewslammed intothe Bahamas this past October, it carried aCategory 4 status andwind gustsreaching140 mph. The storm tore throughthe islands, rippingrooftops from housesand toppling power lines. On the Bahamas' largest island,Andros, one school was flooded out, and 80 families in the northern community of LoweSound lost their homes. The destruction throughout the archipelago will be felt for yearsif not decades—and not just by people.
Along with anarray of endemic wildlife,Andros and itssurrounding cays serve as the winter home for variousmigratory birds, including alargepopulation of endangered Piping Plovers. And since the storm,more than half of the plovershave gone missing from a major wintering site at Joulter Cays.
That wintering site was only discovered recently. In 2011, the first major Piping Plover census in the Bahamas (led by the APP,the Bahamas National Trust, and other conservation groups)counted 1,066 of the endangered birds overwintering there, and most of the populationwas concentrated on Andros and the nearbyJoulter Cays. The discovery led to the cays, alsoa popular wintering site forRed Knots,to belabeled an Important Bird Area (IBA) in 2012 and formally protected in 2015.A second census conducted this year, which covered many of the region's700 islands and more than 2,000 cays, identifiedmore than1,400 Piping Plovers—around 50 percent of the entire Atlantic Coast population.
When Hurricane Matthew hit Andros, it also hit the Joulter Cays. Hard.
This past November,MattJeffery, a program director for APP's International Alliances Program, visited the caysto assess the storm's damage and the health of theplover population. He, alongside Bahamas National Trust and others, conductedan informalcensusand found roughly120 Piping Plovers. While finding any birds was considered a positive, the number wasfar from the 300 or so survivingindividuals the team had hoped to find.“As it stands today, we think we have lost over half of the birds that were there,” Jeffery says.
Jeffery blames a huge storm surge for the Piping Plovers' disappearance. "When [the surge] hitland where communities were, it went over one-story buildings," he says.With theJoulter Cays inundated by water and waves, Jeffery suspects birds that normally use the beaches and duneswere forcedinto the airand directly into Matthew's powerfulwinds.“At this point, it's really unclear how they fared,” he says.
With the ploverson the Joulter Cays aloneaccounting for roughly 7 to 10 percent of the entire Atlantic Piping Ploverpopulation, this couldpotentially bea hugeloss for the endangered species.More counts need to be done, but as of now, much of the population is simplyunaccounted for,with key roosting habitatson theJoulter Caysdestroyed. One such area,on the north end of the island and home toaround 100 plovers,is all but gone. There is a bright spot, though: While Matthew destroyed certainestablished roosting sites, the stormmight have also created new habitatforremaining birds.
According toJeffery, thestorm's high winds along with theocean surgesuprooted a significant amount of, aninvasive species to the Bahamasalso known as the Australian pine. The trees, which can take over sandy and shellybeaches, limitroostingsites acrossthe island, along with drying out soil and creatingstorm hazards. On the Joulter Cays' eastern edge, one roosting site was completely destroyed, but new possible roosting areas that are much larger were created nearby thanks to the removal of the pines.In addition, the storm also left massive sand deposits onland,creating larger,more sustainable habitatsformigratorybird species.
Despite these positives, action is still neededto further protect these roostingareas—and the Bahamas as a whole.Jeffery saystwo specificinitiatives could make a difference:First isthe continued removal of Australian pines to create “optimum habitats” for birds, and second is coral reef restoration throughout the region.In the waters off the Joulter Cays lies the Andros Barrier Reef, thethird largest barrier reef in the world. The reef serves as adeterrent against storm surges and hurricane-induced wave activity, protecting people and wildlife. But even with these measures, there have to be enough birds to survive even meager losses.“Honestly, it’s about building resiliency in the population," hesays.
In January, Jefferyand his team will head back to the Bahamas to conduct amore official count and seehow many—if any—of the missingPiping Plovers have returned.With someluck,they will findgood news to start out thenew year.