Observations on Piping Plover Research and the San Bernard River Mouth

By Roy and Jan Edwards

 

As we are all aware, the Corps of Engineers timeline to reopen the mouth of the San Bernard has been postponed – partially due to U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s request for a formal consultation with the Corps about critical habitat for the endangered Piping Plover.  (For a look at the research on the Piping Plover visit http://www.fws.gov/plover/ ).

 

Within that document are maps showing the areas of the Texas Coastline which are the general locations of the designated critical habitat for the Wintering Piping Plover. The areas around the San Bernard River Mouth are designated TX-32 and specifically TX-31. (See Texas Units: 31, 32, 33 and 34 from U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s website: http://www.fws.gov/plover/finalchmaps/Plover_TX_31_to_34.jpg )

 

Since 2001 when the area was designated as critical habitat for the endangered Piping Plover, approximately 4 miles of the area designated TX-31,  has been disrupted and changed by the San Bernard’s moving southwest through the habitat, and finally, closing completely. Not only does this allow the cattle grazing on Wolf Island to walk and graze in this area, but it also cuts off the outflow of fresh water into the Gulf which rich nutrients attracts the birds to that habitat.

 

In the Fall 2008 Gulf Crossings published by the Gulf Coast Bird Observatory, Benjamin Wardwell (an endangered species biologist) published some field research on the Snowy Plover, Wilson’s Plover and the Piping Plover. (See full article below.) In this article he states that since the critical habitat for wintering Piper Plovers was established in 2001, there have been 540 Piping Plover detections – of which only “33 percent occurred in designated Critical Habitat”. That means MOST (2/3) of the Piping Plovers were detected OUTSIDE their Critical Habitat.

 

 

TX-31 and TX-32 constitute a very small portion of the Critical Habitat.  And since the map used for these designations still shows an open San Bernard River Mouth turning slightly toward Freeport, (the actual river has not looked like that since about 1983 – pre the 2001 Critical Habitat designation), how could anyone determine where TX-31 and TX-32 are ?

 

The last paragraph of Benjamin Wardwell’s article is also significant. In it he states: “All three species of small ‘sand’ plovers tend to concentrate where resources are most abundant. These are places where the Gulf beaches are interrupted by inlets into the bays, rivers, and marshes.” The San Bernard’s mouth is closed - there is no inlet as shown in the Critical Habitat map and has not been for some time.

 

On the Audubon Watchlist website: http://audubon2.org/watchlist/viewSpecies.jsp?id=160 , it states:

 

In some cases in order to conserve Piping Plovers and other threatened species, it is necessary to restore damaged habitat, and attract new breeders. Research by Audubon's Seabird Restoration Program and others have developed techniques to restore breeding colonies of seabirds.

 

It just seems that re-opening the mouth of the San Bernard River would not be destroying Critical Habitat – but indeed would be restoring it as it was intended on the map. From the above observations, looks like what would be good for the river would also be good for the Piping Plover. 

FOR San Bernard Post Office Box 93 Brazoria, TX 77422