Inventory of Habitat Modifications to Tidal Inlets in the US Atlantic Coast
Inventory of Habitat Modifications to Tidal Inlets in the U.S. Atlantic Coast Breeding Range of the Piping Plover (Charadrius melodus) as of 2015: Maine to North Carolina1 Tracy Monegan Rice Terwilliger Consulting, Inc. October 2016 Inlets are a highly valuable habitat for piping plovers (Charadrius melodus), red knots, other shorebirds, and waterbirds for foraging, loafing, and roosting (Harrington 2008, Lott et al. 2009, Maddock et al. 2009). The North Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) has designated the piping plover as a representative species in all three subregions, standing as a surrogate for other species using dynamic beach systems including American oystercatchers, least terns, black skimmers, seabeach amaranth and migrating shorebirds (http://www.fws.gov/northeast/science/pdf/nalcc_terrestrial_rep_species_table.pdf). Recovery Task 1.2 of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) Recovery Plan for the piping plover prioritizes the maintenance of “natural coastal formation processes that perpetuate high quality breeding habitat,” specifically discouraging the “construction of structures or other developments that will destroy or degrade plover habitat” (Task 1.21), and the “interference with natural processes of inlet formation, migration, and closure” (Task 1.22) (USFWS 1996, pp. 65-66). A series of assessments recently filled the data need to identify such habitat modifications that have altered natural coastal processes and the resulting abundance, distribution, and condition of existing habitat in the United States (U.S.) Atlantic Coast breeding range prior to Hurricane Sandy and immediately after Hurricane Sandy in October 2012. The U.S. Atlantic Coast breeding range of the piping plover stretches from Maine (ME) to North Carolina (NC).
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