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The Great Lakes population of Piping Plovers is endangered and faces a variety of ongoing and emerging threats. They rely on relatively undisturbed sandy beaches for nesting and are at risk from habitat loss, predation, disease, and a changing climate.  

In 2016, following partner-led restoration of sandy habitat by using dredged sediment, a pair of Great Lakes Piping Plovers nested at the Cat Island Restoration Site in lower Green Bay. This marked the first time the species had successfully bred anywhere on Green Bay in 75 years and the first time the species had ever been known to breed in Brown County. 

Piping Plovers are now using nearby Longtail Point for nesting, likely due to their success at Cat Island. This new breeding location will benefit from a partner-led project to increase the coverage of sandy beach habitat with dredge material, which ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ will advise.  

̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Great Lakes coordinates monitoring at Cat Island, where a team of volunteers, staff, and partners monitor daily from early April through early August. Partners include U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Team, University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, and Northeast Wisconsin Bird Alliance (NEWBA). This work is in conjunction with the Cat Island Restoration Project, an ongoing habitat restoration effort coordinated by ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Great Lakes and more than 10 partners who are continuing to reconstruct a barrier island chain in lower Green Bay, Wisconsin by using dredge material beneficially within the footprint of a natural island chain that was eroded in the 1970s. 

Monitors observe Piping Plover behavior, identify individuals via unique color band combinations, find and protect nests with predator exclosures, and observe chicks until they are capable of flying (around 23 days old) and leave the site for their fall migration. Daily monitoring is essential for effective predator and habitat management, and it helps ensure efficient captive-rearing and banding efforts. Great Lakes Piping Plovers across the region have been banded and monitored since the early 1990s, which has provided essential information on their movements, survival, reproductive success, site and mate fidelity, migration, and much more. 

The long-term recovery goal for the Great Lakes population is to sustain at least 150 nesting pairs for five consecutive years, with 50 of those pairs outside of Michigan. The continued success of this effort depends on an extraordinary partnership of the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Team, which includes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, state DNRs, Great Lakes Tribes, Detroit Zoo, ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡, Birds Canada, and Lake Superior State University, among many others. A large proportion of funding for these conservation efforts comes from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which has allowed for enhanced monitoring and recovery actions over the last 15 years. 

If you’d like to do more to contribute to Great Lakes Piping Plover conservation, you can learn more about coastal stewardship and take the pledge to protect these charismatic shorebirds by following the links below: 

• Learn more about coastal stewardship and read ̽»¨¾«Ñ¡ Great Lakes’ here. 

• to protect Great Lakes Piping Plovers! 

• If you see a Piping Plover, report your sighting to Tom Prestby at thomas.prestby@audubon.org or the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery team at glpipldata@gmail.com or plover@umn.edu. 

• Learn more about region-wide recovery efforts at