Waterfowl displaced by HRBT work need our help
Building a sand-topped island nearby can help prevent loss of nesting habitat for thousands of seabirds due to expansion
For 40 years, the South Island of the Hampton Roads BridgeTunnel has held the commonwealth’s largest seabird colony. Expansion of HRBT threatens its future. We can do the right thing for this important colony of seabirds, but only if state officials act quickly to provide them a new home.
In 2018, some 25,000 seabirds, including adults and their young, occupied the site, according to the Virginia Tech Shorebird Program. The colony supports about 84% of the state’s royal terns, 98% of its sandwich terns, 45% of its common terns and 7% of the threatened gull-billed tern.
Additionally, 24% of the state’s black skimmers and 24% of its declining laughing gull population breed on the HRBT according to the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary. While seabirds statewide have been declining for years, the HRBT population has been stable.
It may seem improbable that so many birds would settle next to I-64 traffic, but consider their life histories. Seabirds nest on the ground, and eggs and flightless chicks are vulnerable to predators such as foxes and coyotes. As a result, they nest on small islands inaccessible to these predators. Further, the James River offers an abundant supply of fish, such as the Atlantic needlefish, to feed the rapidly growing chicks.
Terns plunge into the water and skimmers glide over the shallows with their submerged lower bills to capture fish and to feed their chicks. The chicks must be fed by their parents and then trained to fish once they learn to fly. They often are seen hovering over Willoughby Bay with their parents in late summer, learning how to plunge-dive for fish. The Virginia Department of Transportation has now at least temporarily ended this beautiful natural spectacle by paving the island to make way for expansion of the tunnel and highway.
For now, one thing is certain: This spring, thousands of birds will return to the HRBT to nest, and when they get there, they will find their nesting area paved over. Researchers at Virginia Tech don’t think many will just move on to join other colonies. Nearby colonies on the Eastern Shore continue to decline. A recently published study by a consortium of scientists, called “State of the Birds,” showed that bird populations have declined by 30% over the past 50 years, primarily due to habitat destruction.
Importantly, these birds are adapted to return to the same site year after year. Because of their site loyalty, many birds will stay in their old nesting areas at the HBRT for a long time. This will create a problem not only for birds, but also for people. Earlier, VDOT proposed hazing the birds and trapping and relocating ones that don’t leave. Exactly how this will be done is unclear. It is very possible that this spring we will see increased bird-vehicle collisions at the HRBT.
A very simple solution exists: Build a nearby island. The channels in the lower James are being deepened to 55 feet to accommodate new large container ships for the important Port of Virginia. The dredged material is being transported elsewhere for no purpose.
Instead, the sand could be used to build an island for the birds at a fraction of the cost of the HRBT expansion. There is enough material in the Newport News Channel to build a new home for the colony. Islands have been successfully constructed in many places, including along the Chesapeake Bay, as a beneficial use of dredge spoil.
Until building a sand-topped island nearby can be planned, located and built, a short-term solution is needed for the breeding season that begins in March. VDOT should place sand over the pavement at the South Island of the HRBT so birds can nest when they return.
In his “Land Ethic” essay, the great conservationist Aldo Leopold wrote, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”
We believe it is wrong to remove seabirds from the lower James River ecosystem. We need our state leaders to work together to provide short and long-term solutions for the birds before they return. It is the right thing to do.
Michael Lipford is the former Virginia executive director of
The Nature Conservancy and an advisory board member of the Department of Fish and Wildlife at Virginia Tech. Dr. Mitchell Byrd is a professor emeritus of Biology and founder of the Center for Conservation Biology at the College of William & Mary.