All three piping plover chicks named and banded in Waukegan last week have died, the Lake County Audubon Society announced Monday.
During the banding Aug. 4, volunteers gave the endangered chicks names: Dune, Pebbles and Drifter. All three birds cannot be found, said Carolyn Lueck, Lake County Audubon Society president. Volunteers assume that they were eaten by predators, but this is difficult if not impossible to prove without bodies, she said.
Lueck said volunteers knew where to watch for the chicks, and they all disappeared sequentially. The first day, monitors only found two plovers. The next, there was only one. And the day after that, none were around. Monitors can’t watch the birds 24/7, and it’s very possible they were preyed on at night when nobody was watching, she said.
What cemented the loss was when the chicks’ father, Pepper, was seen flying alone without returning to the areas where the young birds had spent most of their time.
The chicks “were likely taken by predators,” Lueck said.
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She said many different animals prey on piping plovers, including coyotes and gulls. All three chicks were perfect weights and were foraging well, Lueck said, but they still hadn’t reached the critical age where they could avoid predators more easily.
“The odds are stacked pretty highly against them,” she said.
The chicks hatched in and spent their lives in Waukegan. On Aug. 4, they were banded for identification in an effort involving volunteers and representatives of both the state and federal governments, according to a Lake County Audubon Society news release. All three of their names referenced characteristics of the Great Lakes region.
The same day as the banding, three captive-raised chicks from the University of Michigan Biological Station were released in Waukegan. Lueck said all three of them are “doing great.”
They’ve been spending time alongside Frankie and Buddy, she said. These siblings, hatched this year at Montrose Beach, are the grandchildren of Monty and Rose, who sparked a citywide conservation movement after raising the first successful piping plover chicks in Chicago in more than 70 years.
Lueck said the captive-hatched birds’ success is one positive development she wants to highlight from this year’s season. Working with nature can have lots of ups and downs, she said, which is something she informed monitors of before the plovers hatched in July.
“This is a big loss for us locally, but overall the Great Lakes has had a great season,” Lueck said.