This is the third nesting season that off-road vehicle access to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore beaches has been controlled by the Park Service’s new ORV plan and final rule, which became effective in February 2012.
The shorebird nesting season is about at the halfway point, and so far there have been no big surprises.
The sea turtle nesting season is still young, but so far numbers are below the past two very successful nesting seasons.
On the shorebird side, nesting numbers for piping plovers and American oystercatchers are coming in about the same as last year.
The weekly resource management reports no longer tell us how many breeding pairs of piping plovers are on seashore beaches, which is too bad. That’s an important number that seems to show up only in the annual reports issued early in the year following the nesting season. The most recent report — for 2013 — was issued in mid-February of this year.
We do know that there have been 11 piping plover nests to date on the seashore. The most, as usual, have been in the Cape Point area, where there have been six nests.
Also of note is the fact that there has been a nest established on the South Beach in Frisco, after the plovers were unsuccessful in that area last year. And there are two nests on North Ocracoke after there were none last year.
The piping plover pair returned to Ramp 43 — after first nesting there last year. Their first nest this season was wiped out, presumably by predators, and last we heard from the Park Service, they were still trying.
The 11 piping plover nests in mid-June compare pretty closely with nine nests in 2013 but the number is below the 18 nests in 2012.
However, we do know the number of nests isn’t necessarily related to the number of chicks fledged or plover productivity. Plovers may try again after losing their first nest.
By mid-June in 2012, two chicks had fledged. None were fledged by mid-June last year and none have fledged yet this year.
American oystercatcher numbers are just about what they were last year and up from 2012.
There are 27 pairs of birds on the seashore this year, with a reported 37 nests. Last year, there were 28 pairs and 40 nests. Both years are up over 2012 when 22 birds established 29 nests.
Once again this season, there are three Wilson plover nests on South Ocracoke, the same as 2012 and 2013. In the past few years, no chicks have fledged.
Sea turtle nesting thus far, however, is another matter.
This week’s tally of nests so far on the seashore is below last year and way below 2012.
So far, sea turtles have laid 12 nests on the seashore — five on Hatteras and seven on Ocracoke.
In mid-June 2013, 24 sea turtle nests were reported — 19 on Hatteras and five on Ocracoke. And in mid-June 2012, a whopping 56 nests had been reported — 43 on Hatteras and 13 on Ocracoke.
A record number of sea turtle nests were laid on seashore beaches last year — 254. And a large number — 222 nests — were recorded in 2012.
Environmental groups used the numbers to claim victory for the new ORV plan. However, access advocates pointed to the fact that nesting success was up all over the southeast, not just on Hatteras, so it may have just been a good year for turtles in general.
This year’s low numbers early in the nesting season, which usually begins in late May, could mean that this will be an off year with fewer turtle nests.
Or it could be a result of the very cold winter and the fact that water temperatures did not rise as quickly as they usually do in the spring.
The turtles can still catch up.
However, there is concern about turtle nesting thus far elsewhere.
According to a story in today’s Washington Times, Texas coastal wildlife officials are concerned about the low number of nests laid by the Kemp’s-ridley sea turtle.
It’s late in the nesting season along the Gulf Coast for that species of sea turtle, which is endangered, and, according to officials, only two nests have been found on the upper Gulf Coast. The total number of nests recorded along the entire Gulf Coast for Kemp’s-ridleys is so far 92, compared to 118 last year.
Texas officials think that the cold winter may have delayed nesting by as much as a month and that there could still be another wave of nesting, even though the peak usually comes in mid-May to mid-June.
We’ll have to wait a while here at the seashore to see if our recorded nests start catching up with the last two years — and if we have another record season.
If we don’t and nesting number fall, I wonder how the environmental groups will spin that?
And we’ll have to wait to see if more piping plover chicks escape predators and fledge this year than have in the past two.
You can keep up with nesting numbers with the Park Service’s weekly resource management report. To find it on Island Free Press, click on Beach Access and Park Issues Page. In the dark blue informational bar at the top of that page, click on NPS weekly resource management report.
Those reports are also archived. Click on Archived and scroll down to choose a year.
By the way, we tried to talk to the seashore’s natural resource program manager about nesting numbers for birds and turtles this season. Phone calls yesterday and today and an e-mail today were not answered.
