By: Laura Goldman
March 26,
2019
In San
Diego’s Mission Bay, just a short drive from SeaWorld,
endangered birds have a protected place to thrive, unperturbed by tourists.
North Fiesta Island is home to a dog park, youth aquatic center—and a
fenced-off sand dune where California least terns are building nests and
raising their young.
Among the
threats to these birds’ survival, however, is this habitat itself. Weeds and
vegetation can easily take over the dune. This makes the least tern chicks more
vulnerable to predators, like crows and ravens, because their light-brown
feathers stand out among the greenery. The vegetation makes it easier for the
predators to eat the chicks and more difficult for their parents to defend
them, Megan Flaherty, restoration program manager for the San Diego Audubon
Society (SDAS), told the San Diego Union-Tribune. And the small area of Fiesta
Island that the birds are confined to makes them easier for predators to spot.
Fortunately,
volunteers with the SDAS’s habitat restoration project help keep the
birds safe by clearing the area of weeds and other plants. “They need open
expanses because their eggs and their chicks are both perfectly camouflaged—they
blend into the sand,” Flaherty told NEWS 8 last year.
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