NYC Plover Project

And we hold one species especially close to our hearts, our mission, our work, the one nesting endangered species in our city, the Piping Plover. Fewer than 8,000 remain, and we are fighting hard to protect them.

Join us❤️

📷: Benjamin Forbes

Piping Plover chick on beach probing seaweed and a single small plant for insects.

Piping Plover chick on beach probing seaweed alongside a small plant; green grass and blue sky is blurred in the distance

Today is #worldwildlifeday. In 1973, UN/CITES adopted this day to celebrate & raise awareness for the world’s fauna and flora. We especially honor all the threatened & endangered species and the special humans working on their behalf.

Claude and the Plovers The story of an albino alligator and San Francisco's endangered species, the Snowy Plover

New Substack! Please read, like, subscribe!

substack.com/@chrisallier...

alt: an albino alligator named Claude 🐊

In the meantime, enjoy this photo of the first plover spotted in 2024!

📷: Benjamin Forbes

Single Piping Plover running on the sand amidst sea foam from a wave and a light blue backdrop of ocean water

Snow ❄️ is coming to NYC & much of the nation … but so are the plovers! In less than two months, the first Piping Plovers will appear on our NYC beaches.

While we love the ❄️, many of us are already busy planning & getting ready for the VIPs’ arrivals!

All Sanderlings breed in the 🇨🇦 Arctic in spring & summer (see map, last photo), w/ many wintering on our NYC beaches!

Please give them space & never let your dogs or kids chase them.

📷: Benjamin Forbes
range map courtesy of Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Single white and grey Sanderling on a ridged tidal flat

Two sanderlings - white and gray, with one preening the other’s head, in a shallow tidal pool

One white and gray sanderling looking back at the camera on a sandy beach covered with broken shells

Range map for Sanderling from Cornell Ornithology Lab showing the breeding ground in Northern Canada, a large geographic area showing migration grounds across U.S. and Canada, and a narrow band of coastline across the Atlantic and Gulf coasts showing wintering / non breeding range

Sanderlings! This remarkable bird is a true long-distance athlete- some flying 6,000 miles each way on migration. Resilient, fierce & cold defiant, you may see them running in flocks at the water’s edge. And no, (again), they aren’t plovers! 😉

Thank you for sharing!

Piping Plovers, Sanderlings and a larger American Oystercatcher roost together on a shell shoal, with blue water surrounding them.

It may be gray & cold in NYC, but we are thinking about the wintering Piping Plovers, Sanderlings, & American Oystercatcher in Cedar Key, Florida. Pat Leary caught this spectacular image. 🌞

to assure that more of this federally-protected species’ offspring can thrive in our city. Join us to help #protecttheplovers.

🎥: Benjamin Forbes
🎶: Sufjan Stevens

Piping Plover parents share incubating & chick rearing duties, watching & protecting their young ones around the clock. This family lived on the busy beaches of Breezy Point Tip. Only one of their brood survived to become a fledgling. We are working hard with NYC Parks & National Park Service …

With the most heartfelt thanks, and here’s to an awesome 2026 for wildlife and all of us humans!

📷: Michelle Talich

So, if you have not yet given, please do so today at the link in bio or at nycploverproject.org, before midnight. We will be waiting for the plovers come March, and are grateful to count on your support. We cannot do this work without you.

As we have mentioned many times over the past month, there are threats to the Endangered Species Act itself. Your gift helps power all of this work to defend endangered species and the very laws their survival relies upon.

We have shown the world that a city of 8.5 million can come together for 100 tiny imperiled migratory shorebirds.

But the threats to Piping Plovers and other threatened and endangered species have never been more serious.

As we wrapped our fifth season with some 150 new volunteers working more than 2,000 hours, what became clear is that together in New York City, we are building a culture of conservation, to protect the most vulnerable New Yorkers amongst us.

Piping Plover on the ridge of a beach, with broken shells, dried seaweed and straw, looking at the camera; the Coney Island boardwalk and buildings in the background, with the top of the Verrazzano Bridge also visibile

Our final ask.

Thank you to everyone who has given, and for those who have not, it is not too late. This past year, we saw threats to plovers from our beaches to the halls of Congress.

Our work has never been more urgent. If you are on the fence about giving, now is the time.

The Endangered Species Act Under Threat: Why It Still Matters for Birds What happens to birds when the law designed to protect them is itself under threat?

New piece aurhored by @allieri.bsky.social in The Ornithologist. Please have a read, comment & share. Also consider subscribing to this excellent new publication!

theornithologist.org/the-endanger...

Update — 2 months later … have been posting more, adding alt text to photos, joined the bird feed, and just a few more followers... 😞

If anyone is on Instagram, please follow us over there! (@) nycploverproject 🐦

Piping Plovers from Maine to Florida, and North Dakota to Texas, and Michigan to Massachusetts rely on a strong ESA. Weakening the ESA would erase years of solid recovery efforts and stewardship programs.

Read more at the link in bio

The ESA is the forcing function for all plover protection across our city, state and nation. Without it, agencies and land owners aren’t compelled to do, well, anything.

Piping Plover on a beach with people in the background

Fifty-two years ago, President Richard Nixon signed into law the most important wildlife protection law in the world. The Endangered Species Act works, having saved 99% of the species under its protection from extinction. It is also extremely popular, w/ 9 out of 10 Americans supporting the law.

Remarkably resilient, some Sanderlings fly some 10,000 miles on their migrations! Please give them some space and never let your kids or dogs chase them.

📷: Benjamin Forbes

Pair of Sanderlings overlap one another in flight in the snow above the waves of the Atlantic

A pair of Sanderlings fly together in the ❄️ over the icy-cold surf at Breezy Point. Often confused with Piping Plovers, Sanderlings hang in flocks and run quickly back and forth with the waves. They are also on our city beaches in the winter months, while plovers are not.

For when we protect plovers, we protect so many more species as well, us humans included.

If you’d like to help power this work, please give today: give.nycploverproject.org/campaign/747...

📷: Debra Vilen

Two young Piping Plover chicks drinking rainwater from a clam shell on a sandy beach.

Thank you to everyone who submitted comments these past days. Our fight to defend NYC’s endangered species is far from over. We will never give up on plovers. We will never give up on the Endangered Species Act. And, we know you’re with us every step of the way. We will not stop.

Piping Plover adult and chick on a beach with urgent text to submit comment

This is it! Final 4 hours to submit comment.
Please invest 10 minutes to protect wildlife and help stop the destruction of the Endangered Species Act! Go to link below — *ESA Regs Comment Guide* with talking points & direct links to comment.

shorturl.at/5nnGC

Thanks. This is not under the EPA but the Department of the Interior, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Thank you! 🙏🏽

Young back-lit Piping Plover chick running on sunlit beach, with text alerting people to imminent regulations comment deadline

Endangered Species Act Under Threat!
Final hours to comment!

Endangered Species Act regulations comment period ends Monday 12/22 at 11:59 pm ET.

Easy-to-use comment guide with direct links to comment: shorturl.at/NL623