A captive rearing program is giving a fighting chance for the abandoned eggs of a critically endangered shorebird.
Birds Canada has taken “extraordinary steps” to save nearly half of the abandoned piping plover eggs in Ontario this year.
“Piping plovers rarely tend to a nest as a solo parent,” said Andrea Gress, a conservation program coordinator for Birds Canada, with headquarters in Port Rowan. “They work as a team… incubating the eggs together, and the male plays a very large role in raising the chicks once they hatch.”
Eleven eggs abandoned – due to circumstances that include a parent falling victim to predators – have been put into the captive rearing program this year, thanks to cross-border collaboration and newly granted permits.
Birds Canada took the eggs to the Toronto Zoo for temporary artificial incubation, and then transferred them to a Detroit Zoo facility in northern Michigan.
The breeding population of the piping plover has been in decline since 2016.
“There are only five pairs across the province this season, the lowest number in 10 years,” Gress explained. “Without this collaborative effort to salvage abandoned eggs, nearly 50 per cent of Ontario’s eggs would have been lost this season.”
More than 300 piping plover fledglings have been released since the captive rearing facility was established in 2002.
The Birds Canada Ontario Piping Plover Conservation program is made possible thanks to caring volunteers and community partners such as Tiny Township and Wasaga Beach Park, where nests have been located, and through funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada.