Audubon South Carolina’s Coastal Stewardship Program works to protect vulnerable coastal bird species as they battle against natural and anthropogenic challenges to survival. Staff and volunteers work along the 2,876 miles of South Carolina’s tidal coastline to protect Federal and State-Threatened species like Red Knot, Piping Plover, Wilson’s Plover, and Least Tern. From lifelong and novice birders to teachers and even some students, these Audubon Shorebird Steward volunteers have been trained and deployed to twelve sites this year with one goal: prevent human disturbance to coastal birds through education. Read along to see how these volunteers and the birds they protect have fared between March and June this year.

Executive Summary:

• We have had more stewards engaged this year (149) but fewer hours reported compared to this time last year. This may be a result of a rainy Memorial Day weekend when we usually get more hours than we did and because two sites ended the season early after the nesting birds abandoned the site.
• Specific disturbance data reported by Shorebird Stewards reveals that dogs are the largest cause of disturbance with 210 reports. Other types of disturbances included people walking through nesting areas (25), low flying aircraft (13, not including drones) and boats (14).
• Most of these disturbances were reported as successfully prevented by Stewards, except the low flying aircraft.
• Overwash has been reported and observed to have negatively impacted shorebirds nesting at Lighthouse Inlet, Bull Point on Pritchard's Island and Edisto Beach State Park, with Least Terns also being affected at Huntington Beach State Park, Kiawah Island, Morris Island, Bull Point, Isle of Palms and Hunting Island State Park.

Training sessions begin annually in late February and continue through the end of March and a virtual recording of our training is available for prospective volunteers that come to us in the middle of the busy breeding season. This year, volunteers began working at twelve beach sites but due to high tides paired with heavy winds early in the season, some of these were overwashed within two months of the beginning of the season.  

The following data has been reported by ASC staff and volunteers from these sites. In total, 149 Shorebird Stewards have volunteered 1,700 hours and reported interactions with approximately 1,127 beachgoers, protecting hundreds of individual birds throughout their migratory and breeding seasons. Only a handful of these interactions were reported as negative. Compared to our 2022 Mid-Season Report data, when 120 Stewards worked 1,730 hours, and spoke to 1,639 beachgoers, this year’s data is shows that while more Stewards were involved with volunteering, there have been fewer interactions and hours served. Contributing to this may be the fact that over Memorial Day, when there are typically huge crowds on the beach, stormy weather prevented many volunteers and deterred the crowds from the coast. This was fantastic news for the birds, though! Furthermore, two sites saw their nesting areas completely abandoned from aforementioned overwash events, meaning Stewards ended their seasons early. What's also impressive, Shorebird Stewards dedicated spent the summer holiday weekends protecting birds along the coast. Check out both the Memorial Day Weekend and July 4th Weekend reports to see our holiday specifdic data!