A Nest-Protecting Program Pays Off for Alabama’s Snowy Plovers

Times are tough for Snowy Plovers on the Gulf of Mexico. Climate change delivers more frequent, higher-intensity storms, washing away nests. Development encroaches from the other side of the beaches where they breed. Beachgoers and their unleashed dogs flush parents from roosts, leaving eggs vulnerable to predators and the baking heat. And cats, coyotes, foxes, and ghost crabs gobble up eggs and chicks.

Shorebird populations often ebb and flow from year to year, but recent patterns among Snowy Plovers in Alabama have been alarming. Out of 41 nests monitored between 2018 and 2022 on Dauphin Island, one of the state’s two main nesting sites, just three fledglings survived in total. Only around 68 Snowy Plovers live along the Gulf Coast in Alabama and neighboring Mississippi as of 2024, out of a North American population of about 24,000 to 31,000 individuals. The state’s wildlife agency considers the species of highest conservation concern. “Snowies are an indicator of healthy ecosystems,” says Lianne Koczur, science and conservation director at Alabama Audubon. “If the birds aren’t there, we should all have some sort of alarm bell going off.”

Heeding those alarms, Alabama Audubon staff and local volunteers are working to help Snowy Plovers produce more young and grow their numbers across the state’s 53 miles of Gulf Coast. What began in 2017 as an effort to measure and monitor the population has evolved into a more hands-on program to protect nesting plovers from predators and the public. The results have been promising: Over the past two breeding seasons, 18 Snowy Plover chicks fledged—a major turnaround after five years of almost no chick survival. “I’m so excited that in the past two years we’ve had a record number of snowy fledglings on Dauphin Island,” Koczur says. “It seems like a small thing, but it’s really a huge success.