HMB State Beach designated as snowy plover habitat

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Friday proposed that Half Moon Bay (between Kelly Street and Dunes Beach) be designated critical habitat for the Western Snowy Plover, along with 34 other areas from Washington to Southern California.

The FWS last proposed critical habitat for the plover in 1999. That declaration was challenged in court by the Coos County Board of County Commissioners. As a result of that lawsuit, the FWS was required to revise is designation, with great attention to the economic impact.

The Service will receive public comment on this proposed designation for 60 days, until February 15, 2005.  The Service must make a final decision on critical habitat by September 20, 2005.

According to the FWS the Half Moon Bay habitat stretches for about 1.25 mi along Half Moon Bay State Beach, and is entirely within California State Parks land.

It includes sandy beach above and below the high tide line for nesting and foraging, and surfcast debris to attract small invertebrates.  Small numbers of breeding birds have been found at the location in the past three surveys, including four breeding birds in the most recent survey,  conducted in 2003.  The unit also supports a sizeable winter flock, which was 65 birds in 2004. We expect the unit to eventually support ten breeding birds in the unit under proper management,  which makes it a potentially significant contributor to plover conservation.  Potential threats in the area that may require special management include disturbance by humans and pets, and nest predators.

The press release from the FWS is not enthusiastic about the usefulness of critical habitat designation as a way to protect threatened species. The release says that critical habitat doesn’t really afford any further protection than is already granted to threatened species under the Endangered Species Act:

In 30 years of implementing the Endangered Species Act, the Service has found that the designation of critical habitat provides little additional protection to most listed species, while preventing the Service from using scarce conservation resources for activities with greater conservation benefits.

It goes on to say that it prefers "voluntary cooperative partnerships, not regulatory measures such as critical habitat" to promote the recovery of listed species.

Biologists estimate that no more than 2,600 snowy plovers breed along the Pacific Coast of the United States with an equal number breeding on the west coast of Baja California. The largest number of breeding birds occurs south of San Francisco Bay to southern Baja. The species’ decline has been attributed to loss of nesting habitat, human disturbance, encroachment of European beach grass on nesting grounds, and predation.

There are two other ongoing activities that could affect the plover’s protected status. 

First, FWS is reviewing the species protected status as a result of petitions based on an unpublished 2001 master’s thesis in which the researcher failed to find significant genetic differentiation between Pacific Coast plovers and interior plovers.

Second, the conservative Pacific Legal Foudation has launched a lawsuit challenging the critical habitat designations for 48 listed species of California plants and animals, including the Western Snowy Plover. The heart of the PLF challenge, as well as the earlier Coos Bay challenge is whether the FWS has sufficiently or accurately reflected the economic impact of its critical habitat designations.