LEAST TERN CONSERVATION DONTATION BY FRIENDS OF GOOSE POND
The FRIENDS OF GOOSE POND BOARD recently voted to commission and pay for 30 new tern decoys. The decoys will assist the DFW Nongame Bird Biologists and their nesting island project for Federally Endangered Interior LEAST TERNS in Goose Pond FWA Main Pool West. Photos: a recently hatched Least Tern chick on the island, July 2015, courtesy of DFW Nongame Assistant Bird Biologist Amy Kerns. An adult Least Tern that fortuitously landed on a mudflat 100s of yards away from the island, August 2015, photo by Peter Scott using Lee Sterrenburg’s camera. Friends of Goose Pond is proud support the Nongame Wildlife Science’s LETE recovery project.
The 2014 DFW Wildlife Science Annual Report includes an overview explainig how the Indiana LETE nesting project operates:
Management of least terns, a federal- and state-endangered species, is challenging. It consists of maintaining nesting sites free of dense vegetation, using fencing and manipulating water levels to deter ground predators and employing least tern decoys to attract birds to suitable sites. These efforts have resulted in more than adequate production in eight out of the last nine years and a steadily increasing number of least terns in Indiana since their discovery in 1986. http://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-2014WildlifeScienceReport.pdf
–Lee Sterrenburg DNR bird monitoring volunteer Goose Pond
