FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. — The town of Fort Myers Beach says the berm project is 75% complete. These berms are being built to better protect the island from a 5-year storm event as well as make for better sea turtle nesting habitat. But what about the shorebirds?
They got here in February and March and will be here through September. This is leading to questions about how they are affecting the berm project on Fort Myers Beach.
“The whole project is about 20,000 linear feet and about 15,000 linear feet has been laid down,” said Fort Myers Beach Environmental Projects Manager Chadd Chustz.
While construction crews are progressing along the beach with the emergency berm project, Chustz says the south side of Estero Island, where thousands of shorebirds are nesting, will have to wait.
“Once nesting season starts things get really hot and heavy with the birds and nesting activity everywhere, so we are going to put the pause button on it until nesting season is over when we can start building the berm on this side of the beach,” said Chustz.
Chustz says that the south side of the island will likely be done in September, while the rest of this phase will be completed in early July. They will then follow up with a beach re-nourishment project in the 4th quarter of this year, a project that was planned pre-Ian.
While the sea turtles are using the new berms for nesting, with 8 nests currently in the berm on Fort Myers Beach, the shorebirds would rather do without it.
“They evolved to live in a very dynamic coastal ecosystem,” said Audrey DeRose-Wilson, Director of Bird Conservation for Audubon Florida. “What they really need is that early successional habitat right after some impact like a storm. They thrive on that change. They move into those new places. They do really well. As they become more vegetated in, they look for a different place to go.”
DeRose-Wilson says the berms don’t make a great habitat for our nesting shorebirds, leading to habitat loss.
“For the time, that berm is not a very good nesting habitat even though it has some the same features of a nesting habitat, being it is dry sand,” said DeRose-Wilson. “The birds typically will not, unless they are really habitat limited, nest on the berm.”
DeRose-Wilson adds the berms also don’t have areas that birds can use to forage for food. That said, it is all about balance.
“What we [humans] want is something that is stable, that stays in the same place and continues to support our houses,” said DeRose-Wilson. “And we can continue to go to the same beach that has the parking infrastructure.”
And with that balance of nature and human interaction, DeRose-Wilson says the berm project has been really cognitive to the sensitive nature of nesting shorebirds.
“They are there working on a given day and even shift some of the project's footprint to avoid a nest or a place where chicks are.”
The town of Fort Myers Beach is advising the public to give the birds their space. Also, if you have a dog, they are asking you not to bring them near the nests, as the birds see them as a predator. And if you have to bring them near a nest, keep the dog on a leash.
