Oystercatchers, Known for Sharp Bills and Beady Eyes, Are Making a Comeback Thanks to Conservation
SOUTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (AP) — On a pristine Rhode Island beach teeming with noisy seabirds, a group of biologists armed with nets sneak up on a pair of American oystercatcher chicks. But just as they move in to capture them, one of the football-size birds, with bright-orange bills and long legs, scampers into a coastal salt pond. The other briefly takes to the air, sending the team running across the mile-and-a-half-long (2.4-kilometer-long) beach in pursuit. “There is a problem. They can fly,” Alan Kneidel, a senior conservation biologist with the environmental group Manomet Conservation Sciences, said as he watched the team go after the chicks. Eventually, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists tracked down both birds. They bundled them each into white pillow cases and gingerly carried them to a sand dune where body measurements were taken and bands clipped onto their long, peach-colored legs. Birds starting to recover The banding in the 787-acre (318-hectare) Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge is part of a nationwide effort to restore the oystercatcher’s population along the coasts …
