Pennsylvania Dune Restoration Project Creates Habitats for Shorebirds and Other Wildlife

The following project was made possible by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which provides federal funding to help remediate contaminated sites, improve water quality, restore habitats, and conduct other essential environmental projects throughout the Great Lakes region.

At Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania, a dune habitat restoration project will welcome native plants, shorebirds, and other wildlife to Pennsylvania’s only “seashore,” says Holly Best, Park Manager 3.

A killdeer on the shore. Credit: Presque Isle State Park Facebook page

Established as a state park in 1921, Presque Isle is a 3,200-acre peninsula that connects to Lake Erie and provides opportunities for outdoor activities like swimming, boating, fishing, and hiking. As a common resting spot for migrating birds, the park is also a popular birdwatching destination. More than 339 species of birds have been identified on park property, with 47 of those considered threatened or endangered.

“[The dune restoration project] should give the shorebirds a nice, safe place to hide,” says Best. “We have a lot of birds that stop and rest and forage here.”

Made possible by $512,407 in funding from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, the dune habitat restoration project is a partnership between the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the Regional Science Consortium, an Erie-based environmental research organization. Together, the partners aim to protect dune topography and wildlife habitat at the park’s popular Beach 8.

“It’s always a need for us to protect our shoreline and beef up some of our dune locations,” says Best, who explains that these sandy dunes serve as valuable beachside habitat for birds, insects, small mammals, and other wildlife.

Restored Dunes Prevent Wind Erosion

After a new restroom facility and beach house building were recently constructed at Beach 8, the loss of trees and native vegetation led to wind erosion through openings in the shoreline. As these winds blew loose sand into the nearby parking lot, they were “basically sandblasting the buildings," says Best, and creating an ongoing maintenance issue.

To remedy this, the first phase of the dune restoration project was completed in April, when park maintenance staff distributed a large delivery of sand across two diminished dunes. Temporary wind erosion barriers were installed to prevent the new sand from blowing away until the Regional Science Consortium could plant native grasses to anchor the restored dunes in place with their roots.

“This makes a whole ecosystem and habitat where a lot of different animals live,” says Best. “The Regional Science Consortium actually gathers seeds and cuttings from the park, grows them in a couple greenhouses—one we have here and one we have at Gannon University—and then propagates them and puts them back on the park. We're always very careful to keep actual native vegetation on the park.”

A second round of plantings—including species like American beachgrass, little bluestem, switchgrass, and trailing fuzzybean—is planned for this autumn. Visitors can learn more about these plants, as well as the creatures that call the new habitat home, via informational panels that will be installed near the dunes this summer.

A Safe Haven for Birds

Among the wildlife that will populate the new dune structures are birds like gulls, sanderlings, killdeer, osprey, and owls. Many of these birds nest on park property at Gull Point, a more remote location at the tip of the peninsula.

“[Gull Point is] where we have the most nesting birds, just because there is the least amount of people, but we do see a lot of bird activity all along the shoreline with different shorebirds,” says Best. “They’re coming across the lake and landing on the peninsula like a little break before they keep going south or keep going north, whichever way they’re going.”

Facing threats from climate change, habitat loss, and human activity, an estimated 2.9 billion breeding adult birds have disappeared across the United States and Canada since 1970, making conservation of vulnerable species increasingly important. At Presque Isle, one such species is the Great Lakes piping plover, which is endangered in the Great Lakes region.

A piping plover on the shore. Credit: Presque Isle State Park Facebook page

“We used to have piping plovers regularly, but when the park had a boom with people, the birds kind of stopped coming,” says Best. “They are some of the birds nesting out at Gull Point, which is the only place in Pennsylvania where they nest.”

Because they lay their eggs in beachy areas, piping plovers are threatened by encroaching shoreline development and rising sea levels. In the Great Lakes region, there are only 81 unique breeding pairs of these birds. While this number is up from just 15 pairs in the 1980s, there’s still work to be done before piping plovers are no longer endangered.

Presque Isle has worked to return greater numbers of piping plovers to the park since establishing their first piping plover management plan with the Pennsylvania Game Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2007. Along with the Regional Science Consortium, Erie Bird Observatory, and the Western Pennsylvania Conservatory, these groups help create safe nesting habitats for shorebirds like piping plovers by removing invasive species, applying herbicides, and monitoring nests.

Best affectionately refers to these conservation efforts as “a lot of work for a little bird.” The Erie Bird Observatory monitors the Gull Point piping plovers on a daily basis, providing information about mating, nests, and hatchlings. In case of an emergency, the Pennsylvania Game Commission is also on deck to intervene.

“We've had very dramatic years where nests were laid in areas that started to get water, so Game Commission staff were running out there in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning to gather up eggs and put them in an incubator,” says Best. “We send them to Michigan to be captively reared.”

From Best’s perspective, that hard work has paid off.

“We have a pretty good success story through building up that habitat, welcoming them, and making sure that education goes hand in hand,” she says. “If they come back this year, this will be approximately the ninth year of them coming back and successfully nesting.”

The Future of the Dunes

Over the next few seasons, Best looks forward to welcoming wildlife like shorebirds to the restored dune habitat. The hope is that this added habitat will strengthen the food chain and increase biodiversity.

To support that goal, a third round of planting by the Regional Science Consortium is planned for next spring. In the meantime, park partners will monitor pollinators and insects on the dunes to evaluate the health of the fledgling habitat.

Additional conservation and restoration projects at Presque Isle State Park include invasive species removal, fish and amphibian monitoring, and more. Follow along at facebook.com/PresqueIslePA.