Platte River Management Joint Study Final Report

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16 PipinQ Plover Data_on the number of piping plovers nesting on the Platte River priar to 1947 is scant. Tout (1947) reported piping plovers in the North Platte and Scuth Platte Rivers in Lincoln County during 7 April (1929) to 16 September (:1936). Piping plover was found at the time of Tout "on sandbars in the.bed of the Platte and its north and south forks where it nests with the least tern." Tout (1947) provided anecdotal inferences of nesting but had little actual data. He found several dead piping plovers on sandbars in the South Platte River on 17 June 1933, but no nests or young were mentioned. Census results for piping plovers from 1979 through 1988 are shown in Tab.le 6. Only portions of the Platte River were surveyed in 1979-1983 (Faanes 1983, NGPC.unpubl data, Platte River Trust, unpubl. data). From 1984 through 1988, the number of colonies surveyed remained about the same (NGPC, unpubl data; " PRWCT, unpubl', data): 'The number of individual piping plovers observed on and adjacent to the Platte River ranged from 46 in 1981 to 164 in 1986. A recent analysis of Nebraska Game and Parks Commission data (EA Associates 1988) suggests that populations of least terns and -piping plovers are increasing in the Platte River system. In the Central Platte River area., Lingle (1988) reported that return rates among color-marked young of the.year for both species are below those for other areas indicating poor survival.. Lingle (1988) also stated that the Central Platte River population of least tern and piping plover is characterized by a low return rate ainong breeding individuals. Bald EaQle In Nebraska, bald eagles.once bred regularly (1870's and 1880's) along the Missouri River and along Indian Creek in Gage County, on the eastern edge of the State (Rapp et al. 1958, Johnsgard 1980)...Towr:send (1839) recorded a nest on the North Platte River near Ash Hollow on May 25, 1834. Although the bald eagle is not known to nest regularly.in the State today,'it is a common migrant and winter resident. Nests were constructed and tended at Lewis and Clark Lake on the Missouri River in the 1970's, and near Oshkosh, Garden County, in 1987 and 1988. No eggs were laid at either site. Between Lewellen and North Platte on the North. Platte River, and between North Platte and Gibbon on the Platte River, about 150 to 250 bald eagles winter each year (USFWS 1981). Lingle and Krapu (1986) recorded 136 bald eagles on January 21, 1980 within a 5-mile stretch of the Platte River near Overton. The area was adjacent to Jeffrey's Island, just downstream of the Johnson power plant river return of the Tri-County Canal.