Montrose Beach’s new piping plover family and its dedicated monitors awoke to sad news on Wednesday morning.
One of the four piping plover chicks born on Montrose Beach went missing under “unknown circumstances” sometime after 6 p.m. Tuesday, according to Chicago Piping Plovers, a volunteer organization dedicated to protecting the endangered birds.
The chick, which hatched on June 30 or July 1, is presumed dead since it’s too young to survive alone.
The piping plover parents, Imani and Searocket, continue to watch over their three remaining chicks.
“Unfortunately, loss is expected among broods,” said Tamima Itani, the Chicago Piping Plovers’ lead volunteer coordinator.
Imani, the father, was born on Montrose Beach in 2021 to Monty and Rose, and he was one of two who survived out of four. In the wild, on average, 1.5 piping plovers in a nest of four make it to fledge, according to Michigan State University’s W.K. Kellogg Bird Sanctuary.
Searocket, the mother, was raised in captivity and released on the beach last year. The birth of the four chicks was historic because she and two other captive-reared plovers in Waukegan were the first captive-reared piping plovers to lay eggs in Illinois.
The family is part of an ongoing effort to restore the population in the Great Lakes, which used to see 500 to 800 pairs nest annually. By the 1980s, that number declined to only a dozen pairs annually, due largely to habitat loss. Piping plovers were subsequently put on the endangered species list.
“The outlook is good (for the remaining three chicks), especially as they get older,” Itani said. “But there are many threats and we can still lose others.”
Piping plovers in Chicago: How the ‘love story’ between Monty and Rose unfolded at Montrose Beach
Chicago Piping Plovers asks that Montrose Beach visitors respect closed area boundaries, keep dogs on leashes and dispose of trash properly.
“While not a pet, this chick was much loved and will be missed,” wrote Chicago Piping Plovers on social media. It has amassed a dedicated following of over 3,000 users on both Instagram and Twitter eager for the piping plover family to thrive.
The organization plans to move forward with the naming contest for the remaining three chicks. The submission form, which called for names that reflect “Chicago’s heritage, culture and diversity” closed Thursday night. Once names are selected, the chicks will be banded so they can be identified.
