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The H. Lee White Maritime Museum and New York Sea Grant announce the addition of an educational exhibit featuring the New York Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Program to the Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival on Saturday, May 17.
The festival will be held from noon to 4 p.m. at the museum on West First Street Pier in Oswego and admission is free.
The New York Great Lakes Piping Plover Recovery Program is working to restore the population of the tiny bird that is a federally endangered species. At one point, several hundred pairs of piping plovers nested through the Great Lakes region. By 1990, only approximately a dozen pairs remained, all in northern Michigan. Efforts by conservationists have encouraged a slow recovery of the species.
The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation; Audubon New York and the Onondaga Audubon Society; New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Great Lakes Research Consortium, and researchers and students at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) are among those encouraging the return of the species to New York.
A migratory species, the piping plover tends to return to their nesting areas year after year. In 2015, observation of the first nesting pair in New York since 1984 was recorded. From 2017 to 2020, a research team led by ESF Professor Jonathan Cohen, Ph.D. documented the birds’ preferred habitat areas along Lake Ontario, monitored threats, produced plover habitat management guidelines and “Share the Shore” public education materials.
Dr. Cohen has described the piping plover as “a North American natural heritage species that serves a unique ecological role as a sentinel of the health of our beach and dune systems.”
The Lake Ontario Waterfront Festival also features live raptor presentations with the Braddock Bay Raptor Research team; The Happy Pirates performance troupe; children’s activities, such as making a toy boat for Sailboat Sprint races on the pier; water rescue and recreation exhibits and demonstrations; historic vessels and lighthouse tours; and Great Lakes outdoor recreation, science and conservation exhibitors.
A new exhibit at the H. Lee White Maritime Museum features a bicentennial celebration of the opening of the New York State Erie Canal.
For more information, contact the H. Lee White Maritime Museum at 315-342-0480.
