Going the distance for piping plovers

Towering 450 feet above Lake Michigan, the famous sand dunes of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore are a familiar symbol of our state’s natural resources to many Michiganders. Fewer know that this lakeshore is also the summer home of more than one-third of the population of the critically endangered Great Lakes piping plover.

This small, sand-colored, migratory shorebird breeds only on Great Lakes beaches – nowhere else in the world.

The adult birds are about 7 inches long with a 15- inch wingspan. They weigh an average of 2.3 ounces. Their eggs incubate for up to 28 days. From year to year, plovers breed with the same mate, often nesting within 128 feet of their previous nesting site.

Masters of camouflage, they can hide in tire tracks or footprints in the sand.

As winter approaches, plovers migrate south to warmer climates along the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts. They are strong fliers: One flew 1,400 miles in 48 hours.

While they once were locally common across many of the wide sandy beaches of the Great Lakes, decades of decline caused mainly by habitat loss and pressure from recreation left the Great Lakes piping plover a hair’s breadth from extinction by the 1980s.

But Michiganders have stepped up for this symbol of the wild Great Lakes. Recent successes show that with continued intensive efforts, recovery of the Great Lakes piping plover is an achievable goal.

Saving a species

Historically, plovers lived on all five Great Lakes and had breeding populations in eight states plus Ontario. The population once numbered 500 pairs or more, but a decline across the 20th century left a tiny population of fewer than 20 pairs, breeding only in northern Michigan. The plovers were placed on the Federal Endangered Species list in 1986, and soon a group of partners came together to try to save the species.

In an effort led by state and federal agencies, university researchers, tribal governments, and non-governmental organizations, biologists fan out across the Great Lakes each season attempting to locate every single Great Lakes piping plover pair and nest.

Once found, nesting areas are protected with ropedoff areas of beach called psychological fencing to give plovers more space, and small wire cages that keep out predators while allowing the tiny plovers access to their nests. At many locations, nest site monitors protect the sites all summer. They talk to beach visitors and watch for predators and potential signs of nest abandonment.

In an important part of the recovery program, if plover nests appear abandoned, the nest monitors work with supervising biologists who decide if the eggs should be taken into captivity. When this happens, the monitors quickly and carefully transport the eggs to the University of Michigan Biological Station in Pellston, Michigan.

The Detroit Zoo leads the biological station’s Great Lakes Piping Plover Captive Rearing Center. Zookeepers recruited from zoos around the country take shifts staffing the center, where abandoned plover eggs are incubated and hatched. The chicks are raised until they “fledge” – that is, become capable of flight and independence.

At the end of the summer breeding season, the captiveraised chicks are released at plover habitats around the Great Lakes.

Dedication in the dunes

Sleeping Bear is home to the largest concentration of breeding Great Lakes piping plovers. Here, a team of National Park Service staff and volunteers maintain one of the most intensive endangered species recovery efforts in the country. These plover monitors spend thousands of hours each summer shepherding plovers through the breeding season. They watch and protect them from the first arrival of plovers in April, through nest establishment in May, hatching in June, and chick fledging in July and August.

Each plover at Sleeping Bear Dunes and across the Great Lakes is banded with a uniquely colored band, allowing researchers and staff to track individual plovers throughout their life cycle. This has led to many important discoveries that have helped managers guide plover recovery efforts, including that this work is making a difference: Many of the young plovers that have founded new nesting sites elsewhere were hatched right here at Sleeping Bear Dunes.

Signs of success

This intensive conservation work has slowly but surely shown results. From a low of 12 pairs in 1990, the plover population has gradually risen. The population jumped from 81 pairs in 2024 to 88 pairs in 2025 – a new record. At 88 pairs, the population is well above halfway to the recovery goal of 150 pairs throughout the Great Lakes, a level that seemed hardly achievable even 20 years ago.

It’s not just a numbers game: The population’s range has gradually expanded from its northern Michigan core to once again breeding on all five Great Lakes in Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ontario, with nesting also occurring in Ohio and New York in recent years.

Challenges remain. Predators, weather, and perhaps even air quality could all be to blame for recent struggles with chick survival. And plover chicks are precocial, meaning they leave the nest immediately after they hatch. While plover monitors do their best to protect them during their vulnerable first weeks, it’s hard to completely control a wild environment.

Still, Michiganders and others around the Great Lakes have shown that they value this symbol of the wild and are willing to go to great lengths for their survival and recovery.

Plover protocol

If you visit Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and encounter Great Lakes piping plovers or their nests, take the following precautions:

• Observe from a distance, and respect protective fences.
• Keep dogs leashed.
• Do not feed the birds, as it increases predators.
• Plover chicks are small and can easily hide in sand. Give plenty of space, as they are easily stepped on.
• Report any harassment of plovers to Sleeping Bear Dunes Headquarters, 231-326-4700, ext. 5010.
• At the same phone number, you can volunteer to join the Piping Plover Patrol.