Love a Plover

‘Are you aware of the birds? The birds nesting?’ I ask the couple, as they walk along the shoreline towards me with their two dogs off-lead. The bloke growls at me, ‘Our dogs are under effective control,’ as one lollops off, zigzagging its way into the sand dunes. Further down the beach, the small nesting boxes nestle into the grass, past the high water mark. There are ropes to signify ‘stay away’ from this marked-out safety zone.

In this space between land and ocean–a place of submerged and washed up things, of life teeming below the surface and skimming across waves and the shore–small birds, camouflaged among the seaweed and beach grasses, build their tiny nests in depressions in the sand.

I feel like I have a duty to speak, to alert these humans to the precious creatures, at risk on this coastal zone. I wonder how the dog owners will respond. ‘The whole beach here is on-lead during nesting season,’ I say. ’I’m just concerned about the hooded plovers. There are only a few hundred left in Victoria.’

‘Yeah, they’re OK, the dogs are under control,’ he tells me.

‘I just hope the birds make it…’ I say as the couple continue on. The off-lead beach is only a few kilometres away, yet each morning, dog owners have been here, in the nesting zone, with their dogs running free.

It is dogs like this, roaming, that pose one of the biggest threats to these shore-nesting birds. A recent Birdlife Australia research paper on the impact on shorebirds of dogs on beaches states, ‘Dogs on beaches fit the ecological definition of invasive species.’ While I bristle at this notion, as a dog owner and dog lover myself, it seems this is science talking. And it makes me wonder: should it really be that difficult for humans with dogs to share the environment respectfully, when the survival of a species might be at stake?

Each nesting season, the small vulnerable hooded plovers nest along the shoreline of beaches and inland salt lakes. Each season, volunteers map and track the plovers’ precarious lives, and each season, chicks are lost–to seabirds, to horses trampling, to people stomping, to foxes, and yes, to dogs. To add to the challenge, each summer on the beach I visit, the signs put up to protect the birds are torn down: defaced, wiped out, ripped off and smashed over. Signs on the track tell of the hooded plovers’ plight, and at the edge of the beach during nesting season, a large sign makes it clear: ‘Dogs must be on a lead past this point’. The repeated destruction of these signs astounds me.

Dogs must be on leash to protect beach nesting birds

Who would bother to destroy signs which are there to protect a threatened species, and why? What does this say about how humans consider their impact on the environment in general: the use of plastic bags; the rubbish of straws and cigarette butts; excessive power usage; pollution of rivers; destruction of habitat. We seek to co-exist, yet how many of us question the impact of our actions and are prepared to give up something, or change our behaviour, for the benefit of the environment?

Dogs on lead sign vandalised, with dog walkers in the distance.

There are approximately 1400 hooded plovers of the eastern subspecies throughout Australia, with around 600 in Victoria. John Murray, a volunteer with Birdlife Australia, calls himself a HoodLUM: a Hoodie Lover Ultra Militant. Last season was a good season along the Bellarine Peninsula. Murray monitored 13 nests and 33 eggs along his 7 km of coast. Nine chicks were born, and two survived to fledgling stage. However, Murray says that he recorded 51 acts of vandalism to the signs which alert beachgoers to the precarious existence of the hooded plover.

As I watch the waves on the wild ocean beach, a sea bird stands, heavy and deliberate on the rockpool shelf. It lifts off into the wind, and wheels back over the hooded plover zone. Holding itself aloft, it’s almost stationery, a dive-bomber. I will the wind to move it on, away from the threatened birds and their tentative hold on the sand. Fly away predator! Fly away! While I can’t change the behaviour of predatory wild things, maybe humans can be persuaded to exercise some forms of effective control.

This month, BirdlIfe Australia is taking part in Plover Appreciation Day, with the aim of making humans aware of the threat our presence poses for this ground-nesting bird species. ‘The key to coexistence between people and plovers is awareness, understanding and sharing space with them.’ Perhaps people could consider choosing the off-lead dog beaches some mornings, or keeping their dogs on lead, just through the nesting season. One free-range dog might be the end of one potential free-range bird. And for that, there would only be humans to blame, really.

Edited version published 14 September, 2018 in The Guardian Australia

Plover Appreciation Day is September 16