“Piping Plovers on the Wintering Grounds”
Melissa Chaplin and Kristen Vale
Team Plover
The Great Lakes Piping Plovers spend 3-5 months in the Great Lakes region, during breeding season. The majority of their year, however, is spent in the lower United States, and as far south as Mexico and the Bahamas, on wintering grounds. Melissa Chaplin and Kristen Vale will share information about efforts to protect wintering Piping Plovers and their habitat, in South Carolina and Texas respectively. Melissa will share research findings from Georgia and South Carolina and discuss the wintering range challenges that the Great Lakes Piping Plover face. Kristen will share monitoring results, habitat photos, and challenges for winter Piping Plovers at sites along the Upper Texas Coast, including the sites where the beloved Monty wintered.
About Melissa
Endangered Species Biologist/Recovery Team Lead with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Melissa is an Endangered Species Biologist and the Recovery Team Lead with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service) South Carolina Field Office located in Charleston, South Carolina. She has been with the agency for almost 20 years and she focuses on the recovery of federally-listed beach-dependent species such as piping plovers, red knots, and loggerhead sea turtles. Her primary responsibilities include leading the SC Field Office’s Recovery Program, co-leading the Service’s Southeast Region recovery efforts for the piping plover and red knot, reviewing and commenting on shoreline stabilization projects (i.e. beach renourishment, inlet relocation), designing monitoring and management plans to minimize impacts to species associated with shoreline stabilization projects and developed shorelines, working with beach communities to minimize disturbance to shorebirds, and overseeing the sea turtle and shorebird project on Bulls Island in the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge. The majority of her field work involves piping plover and red knot surveys, shorebird diet studies, and sea turtle and shorebird nesting surveys on Bulls Island. She received her Bachelor’s degree in Wildlife Biology from Clemson University and her Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from the College of Charleston. She did her graduate work on loggerhead sea turtle nest relocation on the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.
About Kristen
Texas Coastal Program Coordinator for American Bird Conservancy
Kristen is the Texas Coastal Program Coordinator for American Bird Conservancy (ABC). Kristen has a BS in Wildlife & Fisheries Sciences from Texas A&M University and an MS in Environmental Sciences from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She has been studying shorebird ecology on Galveston Island since 2012 and her thesis work focused on the distribution of Piping Plover on the Upper Texas Coast. At ABC Kristen helps coordinate protection, monitoring, and outreach of imperiled beach-nesting bird and nonbreeding bird species along the Texas coast. She also serves as a core partner of the certified Bird City Texas community of Galveston.
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