Dog owners, beware of bird nests

Threatening endangered species along protected shoreline could result in hefty fines

Waterford — A dog entered a federally protected bird nesting area at Harkness Memorial State Park recently, at the peak of nesting season, and crushed the eggs of one of the state’s most vulnerable endangered bird species, state environmental officials said.

The trampled nest was discovered by field staff with the Audubon Alliance for Coastal Waterbirds while completing a daily survey of the park early in the morning, the Audubon Society said in a July 11 news release.

Come October, law enforcement officers will be able to issue infractions to dog owners who violate a new state law that protect nesting shorebirds, but Audubon Society officials say they are simply hoping to raise public awareness.

“Every single nest matters for this threatened bird,” Audubon Connecticut’s Coastal Program Coordinator Elizabeth Amendola said. “Compared to 10 years ago, the number of breeding pairs of least terns nesting in the state has decreased by almost half.”

The birds, which had 247 nesting pairs at a handful of beaches in Connecticut in 2022, are about the size of a robin and have black-gray wings, a yellow beak and white body with a black “cap” on their heads, Audubon Director of Bird Conservation Corrie Folsom-O’Keefe said Wednesday.

They typically arrive the first week of May and finish incubating their eggs around the middle of June.

The nest was trampled sometime in late June, by what Audubon staff and state environmental conservation police officers believe was an unleashed dog, the news release said. This conclusion was reached based on paw prints found at the scene, the release said.

“We know it’s not a predator, because they would eat the eggs,” Folsom-O’Keefe said.