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BY GREG HOFMANN
It
was on a sunny March morning that a group of intrepid volunteers
gathered at the mudflats near the mouth of the slough. Their
mission: to relentlessly stomp, squish, trod, prod, and dig
in the mud.
This is the second
year that Elkhorn Slough volunteers have been called forth to
an event known as the Mud Stomp, part of the Snowy
Plover Recovery Projects, initiated and managed by Point
Reyes Bird Observatory Conservation Science biologists.
The purpose is to provide nesting sites for the Western Snowy
Plover (Charadrius
alexandrinus), a species that lays eggs in shallow depressions
in the ground or in beach sands above the wrack line. The footprints
also provide distruptive ground cover that can help plover chicks,
which are flightless for their first month, to avoid predators.
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The
Moss Landing Wildlife Area is owned by the California
Department of Fish and Game.
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These mudflats –
once a series of evaporation pools in a saltworks
– have been used by the snowies for a few years now. But
when the mud dries completely it becomes a flat, hard crust
unsuitable for nesting. The Mud Stomp creates favorable nesting
conditions in an effort to help the recovery of this threatened
species.
The group of two
dozen volunteers met in the parking lot of the Moss Landing
Wildlife Area, just north of the Highway 1 bridge. There we
pulled on our rubber boots, swabbed on the sunblock, and strapped
on binoculars. Then we got a quick orientation from the expedition
leader, Carleton Eyster, who explained the purpose of the program
and the routes we’d be taking to and through the various
ponds. We grabbed our shovels and set out.
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