Update from Sand Dollar Island

This is the third consecutive nesting summer that black skimmer chicks have been observed with swollen joints on Sand Dollar Island. In 2020, the black skimmer nesting season was cut short due to the deadly illness where two thirds of the chicks that hatched that year died.

On December 4, 2020, Florida Fish and Wildlife (FWC) named the five bacteria that caused the unusually high mortality of black skimmer chicks on Sand Dollar Island. FWC provided the final diagnosis of bacterial dermatitis, tendinitis, and osteomyelitis with multiple bacteria isolated: Enterococcus faecalis, Staphylococcus aureus, Serratia marcescens, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

In mid-July 2021, limping chicks with swollen ankles were collected and FWC had contracted with the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study at the University of Georgia for tissue analysis of dead birds and FDEP collected water samples.

July 2022 is the third summer with cases of black skimmer chicks with swollen joints on Sand Dollar. I’ve reached out to FWC for comments and I’m awaiting a response.

Update on the Hideaway Dredging Project: According to the bid narrative, “the Project consists of dredging a total of approximately 428,600 cubic yards of beach sediment from multiple areas within the system including the Sand Trap, the Borrow Area Extension, and Flow Channel east of Sand Dollar Island and placement of the material to restore the west side of a 1.5-mile segment of Sand Dollar Island. Approximately 3,600 cubic yards of sand will be placed on Hideaway Beach. The sand shall be transported and placed on Sand Dollar Island by hydraulic and/or mechanical methods. The contract will be awarded in October with work to commence after November 1st.

In a statement posted by the Audubon of the Western Everglades, (AWE) “Restoration is not the word when you had to apply for incidental take permits for several threatened and declining species. Additionally, most local biologists working in this critical wildlife area are opposed to it. The idea of this project was not initially proposed by biologists or anyone with an environmental background. This is a CRITICAL WILDLIFE AREA.

Currently there are two separate lagoons and flushing is not and never has been a concern. We have not had one stranded manatee for over a year because of natural changes. Now they can enter either lagoon to feed. The cut could close off and the ecosystem would adapt. The real concern is what are we putting into the water? 

Dredging this area is not going to change water quality if you are not fixing the source. The work approved for this winter will be extremely devastating and detrimental during the peak migration of thousands of birds that come to this lagoon to rest and feed. Additionally, the nesting area of declining Black Skimmers, Least Terns, and Wilson's Plovers will be forever altered at a time where they are already suffering from lack of habitat and sickness. Beach nesting birds are in need of habitat worldwide. You cannot move beaches and tell them where to nest in a historically over wash area. 

The approval of this permit is heart breaking. It will be devastating to monitor birds this winter. And as we have seen in this area for years, nature will always fight back to form sandbars how it naturally wants to form. This permit was based on an entirely different model from what the area looks like now. It will continue to change. One tropical storm can change this entire system. Let nature do the work. Property value should not override the protections of a critical wildlife area. This is not restoration for wildlife. These sandbars have changed naturally for years and some human impacts have caused different shapes. Let nature be.”

Brad Cornell, Policy Director for AWE and Brittany Piersma, AWE shorebird biologist also appeared before the Board of Collier County Commissioners (BCCC) and helped convince the BCCC to ask the City of Marco Island and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) to revise the proposed restoration of Tigertail Lagoon and Sand Dollar Island to drop the harmful sand trap at Sand Dollar’s north tip that would destroy 6.4 acres of threatened Black Skimmer and Least Tern nesting habitat.  The BCCC voted 5-0 to send this restoration-supportive letter with sand trap deletion to the USACE.