Podcast

Protecting Piping Plovers in Chicago

June 29, 2019July 2, 2019 Mike Nowak Chicago Ornithological Society, environment, fireworks, gardening, Great Lakes, Kathleen Thompson, MAMBY, Montrose Beach, Peggy Malecki, piping plover, Recall Desk, sustainability, The Mike Nowak Show

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:44:05 — 48.5MB)

Protecting piping plovers, Part Deux

(June 30, 2019) The headline is “Protecting Piping Plovers in Chicago.” I wanted to use “Chicago is for (P)lovers” but the Chicago Ornithological Society (COS) had already grabbed that slogan. On top of that, the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) program that I bought didn’t think that title was long enough, so I had to scramble the words.

Can I say something? I HATE SEO! It will ultimately lead to the death of good writing. But such is life on 21st Century blogs. The program is still telling me that my writing “needs improvement.” Bite me. What am I paying for? But I digress.

Anyway, to show that this is all in good faith with the Chicago Ornithological Society, here’s the link to where you can get a t-shirt with that slogan. Are we good, COS?

The other way I’m making good to COS is by talking about the piping plover situation on my show for the second week in a row. I don’t usually do that but, in this case, time is of the essence. You might have read my blog last week and then listened to the show, where we discussed an event called Mamby. It is Chicago’s only beach-side fest, and it’s moving from Oakwood Beach on the South Side to Montrose Beach on the north side. Theoretically.

Here’s the problem. Recently, a couple of birds called the Great Lakes Piping Plover decided that Montrose Beach would be a good place to nest and start a family. Not only that, it was the first successful Piping Plover nesting site at Montrose Beach in more than half a century!

Historically, the Great Lakes population of Piping Plovers ranged anywhere from 500-800 nesting pairs along the shores of the Great Lakes. During the 1800s, the birds were hunted extensively for sport and for their feathers. And by the mid-20th century many beaches were used and developed for recreation, homes, and industry, erasing viable nesting habitats for a bird that was already in severe decline. “Plovers are an open-beach species that are looking for big wide expanses of unvegetated beach,” says Louise Clemency of the USFWS. “They nest in the part of the beach usually used by people.” At its lowest, the Great Lakes Piping Plover population plummeted to only 17 pairs by 1985. Now, they are making a comeback across the region.

Here we have an endangered species on the verge of making a comeback in an extremely sensitive ecological area. But we also have concert promoters who want to bring about 50,000 people to that very area. See the problem?

The Mamby folks recently posted this on their Facebook page.

Community is a very important element of Mamby On The Beach and we are working diligently with the Chicago Park District to properly accommodate Montrose Beach’s newest community members: the Piping Plovers.

Mamby welcomes the birds’ return to the beach and if their chicks are raised in their current location we are planning to move the event to the mandated 1,000 meters away.

Uh…sure. Why didn’t we think of that before? By the way, 50,000 screaming concert-goers are not the only threat to the birds. So are the rising waters of the Great Lakes.

And, as the Chicago Tribune points out, it’s not just the plovers that make this choice of venue controversial.

Residents near Montrose Beach have a track record of fighting back against fests, speaking out over the years about noise and traffic concerns and advocating for accessibility.

The Wavefront Music Festival, an EDM fest held at the beach in 2012 and 2013, was canceled after complaints of pounding music and gridlocked traffic.

Ultimately, the Chicago Park District has the final say over this matter. As of Friday, a decision had not been made. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Last week, we introduced this controversy in a short segment, featuring Leslie Borns, Chicago Park District Volunteer Site Steward for Montrose Beach Dunes, and Carl Giometti, president of the Chicago Ornithological Society. COS has a webpage called Plover Watch 2019, where you can keep up to date with all of the media coverage of this story.

Today, we follow up on the conversation we started last week, with different players. Paul Fehrenbacher is a member of the Montrose Lakefront Coalition (MLC), a non-profit group that includes all the major stakeholders at the Montrose recreational area (birders, natural area advocates, boaters, fishermen, vendors, runners, volleyball players, etc.). Paul owns the dog-washing and training business called Mutt Jackson.

We also welcome Douglas Stotz, senior conservation ecologist in the Keller Science Action Center at the Field Museum. He is active in programs to preserve biological diversity and threatened habitats, both in the Chicago region and in other countries. In Chicago, he focuses his attention on studying bird migration, the effects of climate change on bird populations and the value of urban area to the conservation of biodiversity.

Chicago is for (P)lovers. I’m writing that again just to make my SEO program happy. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry about it.

Return of “The Recall Desk”

The timing of this segment is purely coincidental. On Saturday, Peggy and I returned to the scene of the crime. Okay, it wasn’t the scene of the crime for her, just for me. I’m talking about Gargantua Radio, aka WGN Radio, where we appeared on The John Williams Show on Saturday to promote the Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards.

Just to be clear, if you live in Chicago, you have about a week to enter your garden. The contest is FREE and you could be recognized as one of the best gardeners in the City. And, just for entering (you don’t even have to win), you will receive a $15 gift certificate to City Grange Garden Center (a wonderful new sponsor of our show). You’ll also be entered in a raffle to win a rain barrel, courtesy of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago.

What’s not to like? Enter your garden HERE.

One of the people who has been responsible for making this happen is the love of my life, Kathleen Thompson. For those of you who have been following my checkered career dating back to my days at WGN (see above), I would occasionally be asked to fill six hours of overnight broadcasting at one of America’s top radio stations. In a few words, that ain’t easy. So Kathleen would sit in with me and help me fill the time.

One of her brilliant ideas was something called “The Recall Desk.” She would go online and look up products that had been recalled for various reasons. They were usually a danger to the people who bought them. Often, if they involved any kind of electricity or chemicals, they would explode. Fun, huh?

A few months ago, I said to Kathleen, “We need to bring back The Recall Desk.” Well, in the week leading up to the most dangerous national holiday of them all, what could be more appropriate? Kathleen Thompson joins us this morning. We will talk about Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards and 4th of July mayhem and who knows what else?