Piping plovers’ last egg able to hatch with help from zoo
The latest round of Monty and Rose’s chicks has been a full success — with an assist from the Lincoln Park Zoo.
The final of four eggs laid by the two endangered Great Lakes piping plovers, who became the first pair to nest successfully in Chicago in decades, hatched Friday at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The egg was brought to the zoo after the first three eggs hatched under the bird parents’ care.
Because the pair turned their attention to raising their three new chicks and stopped incubating the last one, a decision was made to bring the egg to the zoo, said Louise Clemency, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service field supervisor at the Chicago office.
After a day of monitoring the egg in a hatcher, it struck shell Friday and appeared to be healthy.
The chick was reintroduced to its parents and siblings Saturday at Montrose Beach. Rose immediately began brooding and caring for the lost child.
“We were really pleased to see that this chick is visibly smaller than the other chicks … but it still behaves well with the group. … Despite its delay, it’s healthy, and so far so good,” Clemency said.
Clemency said the team is “overjoyed” that the zoo’s brooder kept the fourth egg safe and at the right temperature until it hatched. In 2019, the pair had a fourth egg that didn’t hatch but was left alone to avoid disturbing the chicks.
For this lone egg, Monty and Rose moved away from the egg and focused their attention on the three healthy chicks, so there was an opportunity to rescue the egg, Clemency said.
The pair first met on a Waukegan beach when they were only a few months old and had an unsuccessful attempt to nest in the suburb in 2018. In 2019, they fledged two chicks on Montrose. Last summer, they fledged three.
In early June, the pair lost a clutch of eggs that were eaten by a skunk.
There are about 70 pairs of plovers in the Great Lakes, and for the species to move from endangered to threatened, there will need to be at least 150 nesting pairs, Clemency said.
For the next 3 ½ weeks — about the amount of time it takes for plovers to take their first flight — Clemency said a large team of volunteers will take turns in two-hour shifts watching over the new family during their most vulnerable time.
“We’re hoping this endangered species has turned the corner . ... Each individual chick is important to the population,” Clemency said.
“Who knows what this chick might do [or] where it might start a family?”