Chicago began its love affair with the Great Lakes Piping Plover in 2019, when a mated pair named Monty and Rose chose the unlikely nesting site of urban Montrose Beach to raise their chicks. Now at least two new pairs of piping plovers are at it again in the Chicago area.
The endangered shorebirds have built a fresh nest at the busy North Side beach where Monty and Rose once frolicked. Another nest has appeared at Waukegan Beach, an active recreation area in the north suburb surrounded by smokestacks, a marina and other hazards. Despite the man-made obstacles at these sites, several chicks have hatched this year.
Birdwatchers have called for a “shell-ebration” over this nearly extinct creature’s budding comeback. It’s a good-news story that’s especially welcome during an up-for-grabs political season, as Chicago and Milwaukee brace for the potentially disruptive party conventions in the weeks ahead.
For their own sake, however, the piping plovers need to wise up. Instead of choosing nesting sites dense with people, they should look north, where the 4,000-plus acres of Illinois Beach State Park awaits.
Illinois residents who haven’t visited this gem near the Wisconsin border in the past year or two might not recognize it today.
Typical of other Illinois state parks, it has some obvious maintenance problems. To enter, visitors drive past an abandoned guard station in an advanced state of decay, and the park’s cute little nature center also is showing wear and tear. Keep going to the park office, however, and there’s a sight to behold.
Not long ago, Lake Michigan waves were lapping up to the very edge of the office building. Much of the beach that gave the park its name had experienced severe erosion for decades. Going for a walk on the trails along the shore involved stepping gingerly around washed-out sections. Long stretches of sand were disappearing at the rate of 100 feet a year.
The park is home to 6 miles of natural Lake Michigan shoreline, by far the biggest undeveloped coastline in Illinois. Located between the population centers of Chicago and Milwaukee, it welcomes more than a million visitors each year. Yet state officials mostly stood by helplessly as the encroaching lake did its worst.
Fortunately, the outlook has brightened. To fix its infrastructure, the park received $73 million from the bipartisan Rebuild Illinois capital plan. Construction began in early 2023 and concluded this month, with spectacular results.
The key to the project was building 22 stone breakwaters offshore, which could have created an industrial-style eyesore. Instead, they turned out to be low-profile and natural-looking, a brilliant design that preserves the attractive view.
The breakwaters protect 2-plus miles of a newly restored, wide expanse of sandy beach more akin to Miami than the beaten-up sand spits of the recent past. The shoreline was “renourished,” as the state put it, with a mind-boggling 430,000 cubic yards of sand. The stone structures offshore not only blunt the waves that were washing away the beaches, but also provide habitats for perch, mudpuppies, terns and other interesting native critters.
The true test of this project will come in the winter. Waves and ice pummel the coast of Lake Michigan every year. Severe storms combined with rising lake levels have periodically wreaked havoc. The designers knew what they’d be up against, so fingers crossed that conditions won’t be too harsh for the impressive new construction project to withstand.
And, yes, by stabilizing the beach and helping to preserve its connection to the wetlands and dunes just beyond the shore, the project provides excellent nesting areas for piping plovers.
This species is endangered for so many reasons it’s hard to believe any have survived. At the top of the list is human development that wipes out access to the sandy beaches that make up its habitat. Other threats include climate change, invasive species and predators ranging from unleashed dogs and roaming cats to crows, gulls and raptors.
Humans try to help by placing wire enclosures over nests wherever they’re found to help deter predators, and by shooing away visitors. In Waukegan, a sign alerts beachgoers to the presence of plovers by telling them, “You may not see them, but they see you!” and providing a hotline number to report trespassers who stray from the trails.
Plovers, take our advice: Don’t lay your eggs in a parking lot or the busiest stretch of sand in a congested urban area. Head up to Illinois Beach State Park, where the table is set for you to repopulate an inviting piece of public property that, with any luck, generations of Illinois residents will enjoy for many years to come.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
