Coal Oil Point Reserve

The Coal Oil Point Reserve Annual Newsletter highlights the conservation, restoration, and research projects at the reserve in 2015.

The Coal Oil Point Reserve Annual Newsletter highlights the conservation, restoration, and research projects at the reserve in 2023.

The Coal Oil Point Reserve Annual Newsletter highlights the conservation, restoration, and research projects at the reserve in 2022.

In 2008 we continued with the management of the WSP population at Coal Oil Point Reserve as in previous years. We were able to estimate chicks until fledged age. We experimented with replacing plover eggs with wood eggs and then returning the hatching egg to the plover nest. This was s successful way to improve hatchability during a high skunk predation time but it was very laborious.

In 2007 we continued with the management of the WSP population at Coal Oil Point Reserve as in previous year. We were not able to track chicks until fledged age as in previous years. I attribute this to the more complex beach profile that prevented a clear view of the beach and the large number of simultaneous broods that hatched in the beginning and again at the end of the breeding season. We experimented with replacing plover eggs with wood eggs and then returning the hatching egg to the plover nest. This was s successful way to improve hatchability during a high skunk predation time but it was very laborious.

During the May 2015 Refugio Beach oil spill, federally threatened western snowy plovers (Charadrius nivosus nivosus) were feeding with their recently hatched chicks on southern California beaches. They primarily forage on invertebrates in the wrack and wave-washed swash zone and were directly threatened by both the oil and the actions of the clean-up crews. During the spill, the extent and location of oiling observed on western snowy plovers at Coal Oil Point Reserve, in Santa Barbara, were documented. In addition, annual monitoring of reproductive success was conducted (i.e., number of nests, number of eggs laid, number of chicks fledged, etc.), contributing to data collected on this population since 2001. Although no direct mortality of western snowy plovers was observed during the spill, a spike in the percentage of infertile eggs was observed in the year following the spill. As part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment, estimated oil ingestion rates were compared to exposures associated with reproductive harm in other avian oil toxicity studies. A plausible connection between oil ingestion via preening and feeding and the increase in egg infertility in western snowy plovers at Coal Oil Point Reserve was demonstrated.