Ambassador Group Works to Protect Gloucester's Endangered Piping Plovers

Every summer, New Englanders head to local beaches in droves for sun, swimming, and relaxation. It's those very numbers that have pushed the Charadrius melodus, or Piping Plover, precariously close to extinction. Competing with humans for habitat on local beaches, they have steadily lost ground to the point that in Massachusetts, Piping Plovers reached a critically low 140 breeding pairs in 1986. Realizing that extinction was becoming a real possibility for these native shorebirds, conservation organizations began to help by cordoning off nesting areas on local beaches during late spring into early summer. These efforts have helped the nu

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Ambassador Group Works to Protect Gloucester’s Endangered Piping Plovers

The birds, listed as ‘threatened’ on the Massachusetts Endangered Species List, breed each summer on Good Harbor Beach.

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