Protecting Plovers in Pacifica

By Sue Morgan
On a gorgeous sunny day in Pacifica, with surfers nearby in the water, more than fifty men, women and children converged from all around the San Francisco Bay Area to assist Pacifica Shorebird Alliance and the City of Pacifica with the installation of long-fought-for symbolic fencing to protect the small population of Western Snowy Plovers that historically have called a portion of this beach home.
Western Snowy Plovers rely on Pacifica State Beach (also known as Linda Mar Beach) as a winter resting site, as they do other local beaches around the San Francisco Bay Area.
But the number of plovers in Pacifica and elsewhere has nose-dived over the past thirty years due to habitat destruction, animal predation, increasing human population, and the popularity of our beach areas.
In a 12-year marathon battle, a small group of dedicated individuals pushed to protect the Pacifica plovers, working with multiple agencies: local and state Audubon chapters, federal and state land managers, private land owners, and city administrations. They emerged battered and scarred but proud to help in the recovery of this U.S. federally-threatened shorebird.

So on Friday August 15th, folks gratefully pounded six-foot metal poles into the sand along a flag-marked half-circle above the high tide line. Then they threaded eyeholes in the poles with donated cable, creating a thin symbolic “please don’t tread in here” fence that is almost 1,000 feet long.
The best part came next! Kid-generated beautiful, sturdy ¼-inch-thick signs that were attached to the poles with three plastic ties and two metal ones, and placed along the paths down to the beach. In addition, there were more traditional adult-designed signs, also attached with ties so they would not blow in the wind and potentially disturb the plovers.
It was heartening to see local elementary students who had been working with the Pacifica Shorebird Alliance installing some of the student-made artwork.

The August installation was the culmination of a long fight by Pacifica Shorebird Alliance and allies to help save a species whose numbers have been under 2,000 along the entire U.S. West Coast since it was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1973.
Financial and in-kind support for this enormous project was provided by many organizations and local folks: Audubon California, Sequoia Audubon (the Audubon chapter covering Pacifica and San Mateo), local steeplejack Jim Phelan who donated the cable; and the Pacifica Department of Public Works, which brought workers and tools. Volunteers came from organizations and loose associations of people who work on Western Snowy Plover protection at Pescadero Beach, Half Moon Bay State Beach, Golden Gate National Park, Alameda’s Crown Beach, as well as local Pacifica residents. Research and expertise was provided by Point Blue (formerly PRBO), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the California Coastal Commission.

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Sue Morgan is a Golden Gate Bird Alliance member and a retired Oakland Unified School District educator. She is a member of the Tuesday4Birds group that discovered eleven Western Snowy Plovers at Alameda’s Crown Beach during last fall’s Shorebird Survey. GGBA has worked with East Bay Regional Parks to install protective plover signage at Crown Beach.