Snowy Plovers scurry up and down shorelines as they search for food, and take off in wheeling flights or running retreats when surprised or threatened. Scarce in North America, these diminutive shorebirds are well camouflaged by their pale plumage, making them easy to overlook in their natural surroundings.

The cosmopolitan Snowy Plover is found in North and South America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. In North America, the species breeds along the Gulf Coast from Florida to the Yucatan Peninsula; the Pacific Coast from Washington to Baja, California; and in scattered locations across the western interior, from Saskatchewan to Texas. Outside of the breeding season, they are found in coastal areas on the West Coast, Gulf Coast, and various Caribbean islands. Most live west of the Rocky Mountains, with a significant number concentrated around Utah's Great Salt Lake.

 

A legend for the range map to the right can be found here.

During the 20^th century, populations declined along the Gulf and Pacific coasts, where  the Snowy Plover's breeding ranges became increasingly fragmented. By 1990, the species bred at only two of its five historical sites on the Washington coast, and in 1994 at only seven of the 26 on Oregon coast. During the late 1970s, the birds were missing from more than half of the California coastal locations where they had been recorded before 1970, including in parts of San Diego, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties, most of Orange County, and all of Los Angeles County. On the Gulf Coast, Snowy Plovers have disappeared as breeders from the upper Texas coast, several Florida coast beaches, and probably the Florida Keys. The species currently faces numerous threats ranging from human disturbance to shoreline development.

 

An explanation of the Annual Indices graph displayed to the right can be found here.

Snowy Plovers are vulnerable to many human activities that result in the loss and degradation of their coastal habitats and breeding grounds. Along the Pacific and Gulf coasts, beachgoers and their dogs, off-road vehicle use, mechanical beach raking for garbage removal, horseback riding, and camping all destroy suitable nesting habitat, force parents to abandon nests, and crush eggs and chicks. In the western interior, the species has been affected by damming, the flooding of salt flats for water impoundments, and the encroachment of invasive vegetation into suitable nesting areas.

 

The population breeding along the Pacific Coast of the United States and Baja, California is listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Other states list the species as endangered or threatened. These designations have led to a variety of conservation efforts, including closing nesting beaches, monitoring nests, roping off or fencing in breeding sites, posting educational signs, removing predators, and banning pets and vehicle use. California has explored captive breeding. The Snowy Plover is identified on Audubon's WatchList as a species of the highest conservation concern.

For more actions you can take, including Audubon activities, please visit our resources page.

Visit our resources page for more information about this species.

Page, G. W., J. S. Warriner, J. C. Warriner, and P. W. C. Paton. 1995. Snowy Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus). In The Birds of North America, No. 154 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, and the American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C.

 

Kaufman, Kenn. Lives of North American Birds, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, 1996.