Piping plovers on P.E.I. 'really in trouble'

Piping plover numbers on P.E.I. have fallen off again this year, with only about half as many birds counted as there were in 2001.

"Our survey or census for the year so far has only found something like 64 birds for the entire Island, and that's down from, I think, 87 last year," Jackie Waddell, executive director of the Island Nature Trust told CBC News on Thursday.

As recently as 2001 the trust counted 112 birds.

High winds earlier this week drove surf up onto the shore and destroyed a number of plover nests, said Waddell.

"It's really in trouble," she said.

"We have had low productivity years for a couple of years and that's probably contributing to it, but there should have been even more birds than there is."

Some of the chicks had already hatched and so were not harmed by the high winds.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could add to the problems of the plovers, if it moves around to the eastern side of Florida where they overwinter. There are other species of migratory birds on P.E.I. that spend the winter in the Gulf of Mexico, she said, and their southern habitat may already be affected.