Population demographics of least terns and piping plovers in Colorado Active

Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center (NPWRC) is helping to improve the monitoring of federally listed least terns and piping plovers by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at John Martin Reservoir in Southeastern Colorado.  NPWRC is providing information to the USACE aimed to improve their habitat management and productivity monitoring.  NPWRC is also providing the capability to mark adults and chicks with alphanumeric color bands over a five-year period that began in 2017.  The USACE’s monitoring program will benefit from having the population of least terns and piping plovers that use this area uniquely marked because it will help them estimate recruitment and fidelity to breeding areas.  Monitoring of marked birds at John Martin Reservoir as well as those marked elsewhere will inform broader questions about how isolated these populations are from other breeding areas.  In addition these banding efforts will contribute information for the NPWRC metapopulation study of piping plovers of the Northern Great Plains.