Piping plover season is officially underway in Wisconsin, and this year marks a decade since they started nesting in Green Bay after being gone for more than 70 years.
The small shorebirds rely on the sandy Great Lakes Coast for nesting and feeding. It’s just one of three populations of piping plovers — the other two are along the rivers and lakes of the Northern Great Plains and the Atlantic Coast.
In 1986, the Great Lakes population of Piping Plovers was listed as federally endangered, being at risk of habitat loss, predation, disease and other impacts of climate change. By 1990, the species was down to only 12 breeding pairs — all of them in Michigan.
But after a four-decade conservation effort, the Great Lakes population is making a comeback.
“In 2023, we had a record-breaking pair count of 80 since being listed under the [U.S. Endangered Species Act],” says Jade Arneson, a fish and wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Since then, we've slowly been growing each year. In 2025, we had 88 nesting pairs across the Great Lakes region.”
And Wisconsin is playing an important part in this recovery.
Arneson says the Apostle Islands in Ashland County are historically the foundation of Wisconsin’s Piping Plover population. “And then the Cat Island Restoration Chain [in Green Bay] came online,” she says.
Green Bay’s Piping Plover Milestone
Green Bay is just one example that shows restoring habitat can help Piping Plovers thrive even in areas that were once degraded.
In 2016, after the U.S. Army Corps rebuilt islands in Lower Green Bay – and multiple conservation partners worked with them to restore the sandy habitat – a pair of Great Lakes Piping Plovers nested at the Cat Island Restoration Chain.
“It was May 24th, 2016, when I was watching a female [Piping Plover] and noticed from a picture I had taken and zooming in on my camera screen that she had an egg under her,” says Tom Prestby, the Wisconsin Conservation Manager for Audubon Great Lakes.
Prestby’s discovery marked the first time the species successfully bred anywhere on the Green Bay in 75 years. It was also the first record of plovers ever nesting in Brown County.
The success didn’t stop there. “In 2025, Wisconsin came in second for having the highest productivity across the Great Lakes region,” Arneson says. “We had 11 pairs of Great Lakes Piping Plovers in Wisconsin last year — four [pairs] at the Cat Island Restoration Chain, and seven [pairs] at the Apostle Islands up in Ashland County.”
“Now that we've had successful nesting here at Cat Island for the last ten years, it's been extremely important to the Great Lakes Piping Plover population as a whole to add this second consistent population in Wisconsin,” Prestby says.
Piping Plovers are also now using Longtail Point, a natural sand spit near Cat Island, for nesting.
“It’s been exciting to see that start to develop out, and it just goes to show that where there’s suitable habitat, these birds are finding it,” Arneson says.
Green Bay Recovery Efforts
Overall recovery efforts across the Great Lakes span broadly — from banding plovers to keep track of their productivity to a captive-rearing program that helps salvage abandoned plover eggs.
Prestby and Arneson credit part of the recovery success to the Cat Island habitat being a protected area. But an even bigger part of Green Bay’s success story is the dedicated team of trained staff and volunteers that Audubon Great Lakes and USFWS coordinate to monitor the areas' plovers.
“It really takes a big team,” Prestby says. “We’ve got more than 30 people on our monitoring team, and we’re out here every day — including weekends and holidays, no matter the weather — between early April and early August, depending on when our last birds leave for their fall migration.”
Piping Plover monitors keep track of how plovers behave and protect nests from predators like Merlins. They also monitor nesting and chick-rearing activity, which provides data for broader efforts like banding and captive rearing.
The long-term recovery goal for the Great Lakes population is to sustain 150 nesting pairs for five consecutive years and have at least 50 of those pairs outside of Michigan.
“Almost all of these monitoring and conservation efforts are thanks to the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative,” Prestby says. “It’s funding that comes through Congress, and it’s usually supported in a bipartisan way. Talking to your legislators and telling them how important you think not only the birds of the Great Lakes are, but the health of the Great Lakes and why the Great Lakes Initiative… is so important, is a big way to help these birds.”
Prestby and Arneson say another important way people can support the Great Lakes Piping Plover population is by respecting their space and appreciating them from a distance.
“When you see Piping Plover or other shorebirds on publicly accessible beaches, it’s so important to share the shore with them,” Prestby says. “Keep dogs on leashes, pick up any garbage you see, and be stewards of that beach that we’re lucky enough to share with these species.”
If you see a Piping Plover, report your sighting to Audubon Great Lakes, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, or the Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Team at glpipldata@gmail.com or plover@umn.edu.
Chirp Chat’s Bird of the Month for April
“Obie is our king of Cat Island, who's back for his ninth year now; he hatched somewhere else, so he's actually 10 years old,” Prestby says. We know that he has been responsible for 26 chicks that have fledged over the last eight years. Very impressive and productive numbers. The female plover that he typically breeds with, Violet, has also returned. She is in her eighth year at the site, and she's been responsible for fledging 23 birds over those years. We know all of this because of banding, and it's really cool to shine a light on how unique and how good they are at overcoming all of the obstacles that they face. Not only during the breeding season or wintering season, but also on their migrations.”
