Introduction

The Snowy Plover, known as the Kentish Plover in Europe, is a cosmopolitan species with at least five races over a range that includes portions of North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. In North America it inhabits beaches, lagoons, and salt-evaporation ponds on coasts and barren to sparsely vegetated salt flats and braided river channels inland.

Snowy Plovers nest in the open on the ground. Their clutches frequently are destroyed by predators, people, or weather, but they renest readily after these losses, up to six times in some locations. Double brooding is common and triple brooding regular where the breeding season is long. In such circumstances, females desert their mates and broods about the time the chicks hatch and initiate new breeding attempts with other mates.

Despite this species’ breeding tenacity, its numbers are small. Only about 21,000 individuals inhabit the United States; numbers in the rest of North America are largely undocumented but probably small. Along the U.S. Pacific and Gulf coasts, the population is shrinking because of habitat degradation and expanding recreational use of beaches. The Pacific Coast population now is designated as Threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.