2010 Interior Least Tern and Piping Plover Monitoring, Research, Management, and Outreach Report for the Lower Platte River, Nebraska

This document reports on our monitoring, research, management, and outreach activities during the past 12 months (2010). We prepared it to inform our partners, cooperating agencies, funding sources, and other interested parties of our activities and to provide a preliminary summary of our results. The Tern and Plover Conservation Partnership (TPCP), based at the University of Nebraska–School of Natural Resources, and the Nongame Bird Program (NBP), based at the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission (NGPC) work cooperatively on Interior Least Tern and Piping Plover monitoring, research, management, and outreach activities. While the focus of our work is the Lower Platte, Loup, and Elkhorn rivers in the eastern part of the state, we address tern and plover issues across the state and region. Our joint program includes terns and plovers nesting in on-river habitats (midstream river sandbars) and off-river human-created habitats (sand and gravel mines and lakeshore housing developments). The TPCP leads our efforts at off-river habitats; the NBP leads our efforts at on-river habitats. The report is divided into five sections: 1. Introduction—describes the project area and summarizes conditions encountered during the 2010 field season. 2. Monitoring—describes the data we collect every year for basic demographic analysis and includes the number of nests, adults, eggs, chicks, and fledglings found in the focus area. These data are collected and summarized in a form that allows comparison across the range of each species. 3. Research—describes our research objectives, data collection, and data analyses. 4. Management—describes our actions to protect Interior Least Terns and Piping Plovers and their nests from interference. 5. Outreach—describes our efforts to increase public awareness and understanding of Interior Least Terns and Piping Plovers and to promote environmental literacy