Scientific Research - Hooded Plover

Aim and introduction
Hooded plovers a small birds which camoflouge into the sand on the beach. The hooded plovers are very vulnarable which means it is nearly endangered. It is important to find out ways to save the hooded plover during this research. It is important that we research this becuase once it become endangered there will only be a matter of time until they die out, but because they are still not endangered they can still be saved.

Method
At around 12 pm we went to West beach in search of the hooded plovers. We saw 3 hooded plovers at S 35 14.157 E 136 49.948 the group was made of a photographer, video camera guy, scribe, a threat operator and a GPS operator. When we found the hodded plovers we went in search of eggs but their was no evidence of footprints leading up to them so we did not find any. The cloud covering was abround 50% and it was around 15 degrees and not much sign of wind so there was a pretty good chance of seeing the hooded plovers. Many times we saw other birds such as seagulls but we did not find many. We could not get close to the hooded plovers or they would fly away so we used binoculars and a zooming in camera to get a good view of the hooded plovers. Some methods included that if you could not see any hodded plovers you would stop and turn 360 degrees and there was a 25% that you would see them. The next hooded plover was spotted at S 35 4.406 E136 50.057 where it joined with the other 3 birds. This is when we decided that they were all adults. After we had followed the birds for a few hundred meters they would always fly off back to where we started again.

Results
Most deaths of hooded Plovers occur because of prdators including foxes and humans, the hot temperature which will destroy the egg and erosion of the sand dunes which effect there breeding grounds. Humans have a big impact because they can be sold very highly at some places so people can make easy money. Foxes eat to keep them selves alive and unfortunaltely one of their victims are the hodded plovers. Driving on the road is also a issue as they camoflouge the driver has no chance what so every of seeing the hooded plover and they will run them over. The temperature is always a worry for the hooded plover because they die while its hot and when its to cold they go into hiding. Every tiny bit of information means the little more we will no about hooded plovers and maybe we will be able to prevent them from dying out. Preservation by the government has been induced by methods such as caged nests, development of beach-sharing protocols, detailed studies of breed biology and regular surveys of population. A total of $370,000 has been spent on preservation, with $300,000 on implementing of beach-sharing protocols. You can see by this that the government is making a huge effort to save the hooded plovers.

Discussion
The hooded plovers are at highly vulnerable which means that it is on the verge of being endangered. This would be bad becuase once it is endangered it is only a matter of time before they become extinct. Because they live on the foredune/sand it is easy to not see them and run over them with your car. Erosion is destroying there breeding grounds and preadators are killing them. The hooded plovers are defensless but they have some ways of prtecting their nests such as False brooding where the hooded plover will falsely bend down onto sand preteding that its on its nest. Distraction where the bords pretend to be injured and do funny things with their wings. The final one is leading where they lure their enermy away from their nests and once they get far away they fly back to their nests leaving their enemy.

Conclusion
Extinction cannot be a possibility for the hooded plover. As long as everyone helps and takes care and helps the hooded plover it can defintely not become extinct. Solutions such as beach-sharing protocols, detailed studies of breed biology and regular surveys of population, signposts and designated 4WD tracks can all be put into place, provided that effort comes with it. Everyone can take action. People who do not care and instead try and kill these poor birds should have a fine or maybe a sentence in jail. So remember they are not EXTINCT YET!