Productivity of piping plovers — the number of fledglings produced per nesting pair — in East Hampton Town was down in 2025 from the previous year, but well above the 2023 statistics, an environmental analyst with the town’s Natural Resources Department told the town trustees late last month.
The territorial nesting birds are threatened along the Atlantic Coast and listed as endangered in New York State. The town assists the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in conservation efforts for beach-nesting birds and rare beach vegetation, primarily for piping plovers but also for terns, said Samantha Schurr, a manager of the Natural Resources Department’s piping plover program.
The town monitors around 18 miles of bay and ocean shoreline, including all beaches within the town but excluding federal, state, and Suffolk County-owned land. “Our data allow us to make informed conservation decisions about the plovers,” she told the trustees, while also “allowing the public to continue accessing the beaches” during the birds’ nesting season, during which nesting areas are fenced to protect the birds, their eggs, and hatched fledglings.
There are just 6,000 to 8,000 pairs of piping plovers remaining in the world, Ms. Schurr told the trustees. In New York and New Jersey, an average annual productivity growth rate of 1.5 percent over five years is needed to improve their classification status.
In 2025, productivity measured 1.17 on town beaches, with 17 pairs fledging 20 chicks. The productivity rate “was down from last year, but it was way up from the year before, which was only, like, 0.4,” Ms. Schurr said. “That was a rough year,” she said of 2023.
Predation by crows and foxes, both animals captured on cameras, primarily happened on ocean beaches, Ms. Schurr said. The same fox may have been to blame for multiple incidents of predation, especially between Georgica and Main Beaches. One even dug under an “exclosure,” or fenced-off area, at Georgica Beach, she said.
“I think we have an increase in foxes this year,” Ben Dollinger of the trustees said. “The foxes look a lot healthier, and I see a lot more of them around, for some reason.”
Crow predation was down from last year, Ms. Schurr said, “but they were still present. . . . The crows do, unfortunately, tend to stalk the nests, once they know it’s there.”
The ghost crab was another predator on ocean beaches. “We actually saw one for the first time this summer while we were out monitoring” on Napeague, Ms. Schurr said. “In years past, we have seen that other towns, like Southampton, had a big ghost crab problem with their eggs, and UpIsland has had a problem as well.”
Human disturbance is also hindering plovers’ recovery, she said, citing unleashed dogs as well as vehicles and fireworks. “We try to inform people as we see them” to keep their dogs leashed. Dogs “are not going to eat the eggs, probably, but they might step on them. They also can just cause unnecessary stress, which could lead to abandonment.”
A breeding female plover was killed by a vehicle early in the season “while we were still putting up fencing,” Ms. Schurr said, “and we didn’t know that it was there. That was unfortunate.” The male renested with another female, “and I think they were successful with one chick.”
On bay beaches, “we had seven pairs that successfully fledged 15 chicks, with a productivity of 2.14,” Ms. Schurr said, most at Sammy’s Beach, where five pairs fledged 12 chicks. “It’s such a long beach, and they all have their own space.” One pair fledged two chicks at Maidstone Park Beach, and a pair fledged one chick at Little Albert’s Beach.
A pair was seen at Lazy Point this year, where nests have not been observed in recent years, but they did not remain there. It is assumed that they nested on state property and were foraging at Lazy Point. A volunteer sent a picture of a plover at Havens Beach in Sag Harbor, but “we went out there and looked and there was nothing there,” she said, adding that the pair was also likely foraging.
On the ocean shoreline, “Indian Wells is pretty much productive every year,” Ms. Schurr said of the Amagansett beach. One pair fledged three chicks there. “They tend to fledge about three to four chicks every year.” Another pair fledged a single chick in Wainscott, and at Napeague and East Hampton Village’s Two Mile Hollow Beach, two pairs fledged a total of one chick at each site.
Going forward, “we want to try to figure out different camera traps, possibly ones that are activated differently, as opposed to motion-sensored,” Ms. Schurr said, “because we also tend to see [foxes] prowling or leaving. We see a tail, so we know that they were there, but we can’t actually see that they were the reason” for predation. She added that fenced-off areas should be improved to make them more difficult to burrow under.
