Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - Animal Science & Zoology Piping plover Piping plover Piping plovers are small shorebirds that usually lives on sandy beach and is considered to be endangered. It has a pale color that blend perfectly with dry beach sand. During the spring and summer, it appears to have a single black neckband and a narrow black band across its forehead. The plover’s bills and legs are yellowish but their bills have a black tip. During their flight its rump is white in color. The sexes appear similar, in both their size and color. During the winter, their legs and bill gets darker. Piping plovers are seen in small flocks or singularly. Piping plover eats insects, marine worms, mollusks, or small crustaceans. During the warm season (summer), piping plovers usually lives and nest on the sandy beaches, shores of the Great Lakes, major rivers, or the prairies. They usually breed on dry sandy beaches and in the winter, they settle along the shores of southeastern United States. The piping plover usually nests on the sandy beach, some distance away from the water and is often located near a large rock or clump of grass. There are usually 4 eggs in the nest. The eggs begin to hatch for 25 to 30 days. Piping Plovers are endangered because of habitat loss and degradation. Homes and roads are being built onto their habitat. Off-road vehicles run over and destroy their nest. As a result, their habitat is being destroyed, leaving them with no place to live and to nest their young. They are also being disturbed by human activities near their habitat. Some people even step on their nest and bringing pets that kill the chicks and destroy the eggs. As these things kept on happening, their population started to decrease. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service listed the piping plovers as endangered in 1985. Some of the plans that protected the piping plover were the closing of beaches, and making public announcements. Several beaches were reserved for these birds, including some of the coastal beaches in Massachusetts. This helped the piping plover from being disturbed and from loosing their habitat. As a result their survival rate and reproduction increased. Another plan was making public announcements to alert people about the extinction of piping plovers. This made people to be more careful when they see one and not to disturb them. In Massachusetts, the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program took action and protected the piping plovers. They kept these birds from being disturbed by humans, placed wire fences around their nests to protect the eggs from predators, and restrict off-road vehicles that could destroy the nesting place. They also pass an Act that would help protect the piping plovers, and this was the Massachusetts' Wetlands Protection Act. This Act protected their habitat from degradation caused by harmful activities. With all these efforts, the piping plovers have made a dramatic increase in population on Massachusetts and other places as well. Bibliography: 1. Title: Birds in Jeopardy, Author: Paul R. Ehrlich, David S. Dobkin & Darryl Wheye Illustrator: Darryl Wheye, Company: Stanford University Press, Stanford, California Copyright: 1992 2. Title: Lives of North American Birds, By Kenn Kaufman, Copyright: 1996 3. Title: Eastern Birds (Field Guide), Text and Illustrations by Roger Tory Peterson, Company: Houghton Mifflin Company, Copyright: 1980. 4. Title: Book of North American Birds, Author (writer): John A. Pope, Jr., Illustrations and art by John P. O’neill, Company: The Readers Digest association, Copyright: 1990 Word Count: 510
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