PIPING PLOVERS IN NYC – HOW A NEW VOLUNTEER GROUP IS LOOKING TO HELP PROTECT ENDANGERED SHOREBIRDS IN OUR CITY JANUARY 18 @ 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM Presented by Chris Allieri
Zoom registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYrcO2prj4iGNB-2npPSWeZbo4Qm9-pOSIG Begun in March 2021, the NYC Plover Project enlisted over 50 volunteers to help educate beach-goers on NYC’s most popular beaches in Queens during their first season. Each year, just under 100 adult Piping Plovers come to the city to nest, arriving in March and leaving in early August. The threats facing the young chicks born to these intrepid shorebirds are numerous, spanning predation, fierce coastal storms and flooding, and of course, human disturbance. Partnering with the National Park Service, the NYC Plover Project also helped with monitoring nests on several miles of beach which are part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, one of the busiest urban national parks. They reached well over 5,000 beach-goers this first season, on the sand and at a fixed location. At the end of this first season, the NYC Plover Project was featured in the New York Times. Join this talk with Chris to hear more about Piping Plovers and what you can do to help them, including being a 2022 shorebird ambassador beach volunteer. Chris Allieri is founder of the NYC Plover Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting federally-threatened and New York State-endangered Piping Plovers that nest in New York City. Chris had a very early passion for the environment, nature and animals, usually preferring the company of four-legged and winged friends instead of humans. Chris spent summers at the Jersey Shore where he first saw a Piping Plover, thanks to a park ranger who shared his scope. He began his high school environmental club, was a New Jersey Governor’s Scholar on the Environment and was a national environmental justice organizer when he was a student at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he studied environmental conservation. More recently, Chris also founded and leads an sustainability and climate-focused communications firm called Mulberry & Astor and is a board member of the Wild Bird Fund, the only wildlife rehab center in NYC. His late father planted a seed for loving birds, a love which would be profoundly sparked at the start of the pandemic. In March 2020, Chris saw his first Piping Plover up close. Having only seen them at a great distance, seeing Plovers on an unprotected beach, with dogs off leash and people trampling over their nesting areas was a fire that lit both Chris’s frustration but also his desire to do something. Chris spent 2020 photographing and posting images of over 200 different species of birds he saw in NYC. He spent much of that summer (2020) chasing federal, state and local agencies to urge enhanced protections for endangered shorebirds like Piping Plovers. But Chris knew he had to do more. Fast forward to March of this year, Chris witnessed a dog within inches of having a newly-arrived migratory Plover in its mouth. That was it… the moment he knew his path was chosen for him. The next day the NYC Plover Project was born. -- NYSbirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsWELCOME.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsRULES.htm http://www.NortheastBirding.com/NYSbirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/nysbirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/NYSBirds-L 3) http://birding.aba.org/maillist/NY01 Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
