Couchibuguac National Park welcomed six pairs of Piping Plovers in 2024, resulting in 16 new born — the highest annual production in seven years.
But this is just one small step in the fight to protect endangered species.
Piping plovers are resident shorebirds that migrate along the coast of eastern North America each spring to nest and raise their young before traveling south to Florida or the Caribbean.
This species is vulnerable to hunting, flooding and human activity as the birds nest on exposed sandy beaches.
“This is important because we monitor the reproductive success of piping plovers and 16 new babies from six piping-plover pairs equates to a 2.67 birth rate,” said Parks Canada ecologist Daniel Gallant.
The National Recovery Strategy in Canada sets a production rate of 1.67 as a target, “so we are above target.”
While the park has seen high breeding rates in the past, this is a sign of recovery after the crash the species faced in 2019, when the park saw production rates as low as 0.5 per pair, Gallant said.
“It's been five years in the making.”
The population of the piping plover has been declining in Canada since the 1980s, and it was declared an endangered species in 2001. But Parks Canada ecologist Daniel Gallant is seeing signs of hope.
Before that crash, it was normal to have 10 to 12 nesting pairs each year, so “we haven't recovered in terms of pair numbers, so that's very concerning,” he said.
This is the second time that 100 percent of nests in Couchibuguac have successfully hatched at least one chick, Gallant said.
“This is the only other time since 2003 and we have been following breeding success since 1987.”
Sue Abbott, associate director of Atlantic programs for Birds Canada, said while those numbers are exciting to see, they don't represent growth in the species' overall population.
“The important message is that every beach matters, every couple matters when a species becomes an endangered species,” Abbott said.
Abbott, whose team monitors the beaches south of the Miramichi outside Couchibuguac, said only four piping-plover nesting pairs were found in the area last year.
“It wasn't many pairs that we observed on those beaches, but the good news is that they did well (and) produced a lot of young,” she said.
The population has been declining since the 1980s and was declared an endangered species in Canada in 2001.
“In the '80s, alarm bells definitely went off,” she said, prompting Canada and the United States to implement species recovery efforts.
According to the Canadian Wildlife Service, populations in Atlantic Canada and Quebec varied between 2000 and 2016 – a high of 272 pairs and a low of 174.
The federal government put in place a conservation framework for piping plovers through the Species at Risk Act in 2012, while setting strategies and goals for the species.
The long-term goal is 310 pairs of Piping Plovers regionally, 105 of them in New Brunswick.
Abbott says Environment Canada, which collects data from conservation groups in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Quebec, identified about 190 piping plover pairs in the region in 2024, with only 40 pairs found in New Brunswick.
“New Brunswick, unfortunately, is at the center of population decline, which is exactly what we want to change,” Abbott said.
“It wasn't that long ago, in the early 2000s, that New Brunswick was the main home for piping plovers in the region … it supported more breeding pairs than any other province in Atlantic Canada and Quebec,” she said.
Abbott said the biggest threats facing piping plovers are beach development, off-leash dogs on beaches and recreational use of all-terrain vehicles and motorcycles.
“This problem continues, including in New Brunswick, and there are incidents where vehicles crush eggs or even kill adults and chicks,” she said. “It's very serious and we know ATVs and motorcycles are not good for the health of the dunes.”
Gallant said, while ATVs and motorcycles don't crush the birds or their eggs, they still make tracks deep enough in the sand that it creates a barrier for the chicks to reach their food source.
“(They) can do a lot of damage … before they can fly, the babies have to walk to their food source,” he said.
Abbott said the peak time for piping plovers in the province is from late April to July, when the birds touch down on the province's coastline to nest and then raise their young.
