The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released four piping plovers at Illinois Beach State Park in Waukegan recently, according to a July 13 news release from the service. The birds are five weeks old and were rescued in New York, then raised in Michigan.

“Releasing captive-reared piping plover chicks in new locations helps to encourage the population to spread throughout the Great Lakes Region," Armand Cann, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fish and wildlife biologist, said in the release. “It’s a strategy to reduce the extinction risk to the population. We aren’t putting ‘all our eggs in one basket’ or in this case all our chicks on one beach!"

Volunteers in the Lake County area of Illinois are watching over the newly-released piping plover chicks, according to a July 25 Chicago Tribune report. As of that date, all four chicks were still running around and thriving on Waukegan Beach.

Two recognized subspecies of piping plover are found in three areas: on the Atlantic Coast, in the Northern Great Plains and along the shores of the Great Lakes, an American Bird Conservancy report said. They are considered endangered in the Great Lakes area and Canada and threatened elsewhere, although there are anywhere from 7,600 to 8,400 and their numbers are increasing.

“Illinois was selected as the first site outside Michigan for captive-reared chicks to be released because of our diverse shoreline habitat, the historic presence of plovers nesting in the area and our unique ability to closely monitor released birds,” Brad Semel, Illinois Department of Natural Resources endangered species recovery specialist, said in a July 28 FWS news release. “Everyone is excited because we have documented that captive-reared chicks are more likely to return to their release beach the next spring than wild-reared birds.”

The piping plovers are part of an effort to see a recovery goal of 50 pairs of plovers outside of Michigan, FWS said. They were released on Montrose Beach in Chicago in June. Before that, they disappeared from Illinois beaches in the 1950s, but had nested there in 2015. In 2019, the first fledgling chicks were found on Montrose Beach since 1955.

“The release is a win for conservation efforts citywide, and we could not have done it without the support of our partners at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, as well as the numerous plover monitors and volunteers that assist in keeping the area clean and in optimal conditions to maximize wildlife survival,” Matthew Freer, Chicago Park District assistant director of Landscape, Natural Resources and Cultural Resources, said in the release. “The Montrose Beach Piping Plovers are now part of Chicago’s history and have been embraced by the city as a beacon of hope for this endangered species and the many others that could be saved in the future through partnerships like this one.”