2017 Annual Report 31
T E R N A N D P L O V E R M O N I T O R I N G A N D P R O T E C T I O N A L O N G
L O W E R P L A T T E R I V E R
For nearly 20 years, Game and Parks' nongame bird program and the University of Nebraska-
Lincoln's Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership have been monitoring, studying and protecting
interior least terns and piping plovers nesting along the lower Platte River. This includes
monitoring birds nesting on river sandbars and at sand and gravel mines and lakeshore housing
developments. In 2017, we located 245 tern nests and a record 86 plover nests. We have been
color-banding terns and plovers since 2008 to help us learn where our birds go when they leave
Nebraska for the winter and where they nest upon their return. We have banded 809 plovers and
1,440 terns. Bird-watchers, photographers, and citizen scientists have reported observing our lower
Platte River plovers along the U.S. Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida and along the Atlantic Coast
from Florida to South Carolina. To date, 96 color-banded lower Platte River plovers have been
sighted on their wintering areas. We have received a handful of reports of lower Platte River terns
staging along the Texas coast in the fall before they have embark on their southward migration
to the coasts of Central and South America. Information gained through these monitoring and
color-banding eff orts helps fi ll knowledge gaps for these birds and provides critical information for
planning conservation actions in Nebraska.
