In 1990, conservationists could count every Great Lakes piping plover pair in existence on their fingers. This year, the species had its best breeding season on record.

  • 184 chicks fledged in 2026, a new all-time record
  • 99 nesting pairs found across the Great Lakes this year, up from 88 in 2025
  • 12 pairs — all in Michigan — was the entire population's low point in 1990
  • 13 zoos currently take part in the species' captive-rearing program

From 12 Pairs to a Record Season

The Great Lakes piping plover, a small sand-colored shorebird, was federally listed as endangered in 1986. By 1990, habitat loss, human disturbance, and decades of earlier hunting had reduced the population to just a dozen breeding pairs, every one of them in Michigan.

This year's numbers, confirmed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a record-breaking season press release, show how far the recovery has come. Plovers nested across Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Minnesota, and New York this year, and bred successfully on all five Great Lakes.

Of the 184 fledged chicks, 160 were raised entirely in the wild and 24 were hand-raised in captivity before release — a split that reflects just how much behind-the-scenes work goes into every nesting season.

Zoos, Volunteers, and Sand

Piping plovers nest in shallow scrapes in open sand and gravel, which makes their eggs nearly invisible — and extremely vulnerable to foot traffic, off-leash dogs, and predators on some of the busiest beaches in the Midwest. Thirteen zoos now participate in a captive-rearing program that hand-raises chicks from abandoned eggs before releasing them back into the wild, where they typically return each spring to breed near where they hatched.

The rest of the recovery has relied on unglamorous, sustained fieldwork: volunteers roping off nesting areas, biologists banding chicks to track their movements, and long-running habitat restoration that has rebuilt dunes and removed invasive plants along the shoreline. That habitat work has had ripple effects well beyond plovers, helping restore the state-endangered hairy-necked tiger beetle and boosting populations of native fish and other migratory shorebirds.

The species even produced local celebrities: Monty and Rose, a pair that nested on Chicago's crowded Montrose Beach starting in 2019, drew volunteer protection so devoted that concerts were cancelled and volleyball games relocated to protect their nest. Both birds have since died, but their descendants still return to the Great Lakes each summer.

"Local volunteers continue to play a vital role, contributing many hours of their personal time to monitoring, outreach and education," said Jillian Farkas, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's lead biologist for Great Lakes piping plovers.

The Road to 150 Pairs

Conservationists' stated goal is 150 nesting pairs — the threshold considered necessary for a stable, self-sustaining population. At 99 pairs, this year's count is the closest the species has come.

"With 99 pairs nesting in 2026, we remain hopeful that it's possible for these plovers to reach their recovery goal," Farkas said. The gap between 12 pairs and a species-saving goal has never looked smaller — but as with any small population confined to popular public beaches, every nesting season still depends on people giving the birds enough room to raise the next one.