Living Shorelines Make Nesting Easier for Coastal Birds in Tampa Bay

A 12 months in the past, Audubon Florida’s Florida Coastal Islands Sanctuaries (FCIS) crew accomplished 4 breakwater initiatives throughout the Tampa Bay area. These breakwaters defend the shorelines of mangrove islands that wading birds, reminiscent of Reddish Egrets and Wooden Storks, in addition to ground-nesting American Oystercatchers, depend on to boost their households. The breakwaters had been designed to be populated by oysters, making a “residing shoreline,” which gives a meals supply for birds, safety from wave motion, and pure water filtration.

Oysters and barnacles are already recruiting onto the breakwaters in good densities. Employees have famous seen variations within the quantity of wave motion: solely smaller waves make it via the breakwaters, decreasing erosion alongside the islands’ edges. Oyster colonies ought to proceed to develop throughout these websites into the long run—offering each meals for wildlife and enhancing surrounding water high quality. Wanting again to an older residing shoreline undertaking on the Alafia Banks Essential Wildlife Space, the long run success of those websites seems brilliant.

Highlight: Alafia Banks

Every year, 1000’s of wading birds of 17 totally different species nest right here, making it one of many largest wading chicken colonies on Florida’s Gulf Coast. In 2019, virtually a mile of breakwater buildings was put in on the Alafia Banks, leased from and managed in collaboration with The Mosaic Firm and Port Tampa Bay. Six years later, oysters cowl a lot of the breakwater with huge oyster mats connecting lots of the particular person buildings collectively. There are even mangroves arising from the oyster mats inside the breakwater! On the shoreline, younger mangroves have re-established themselves in areas the place mature mangroves had been toppled by wave motion and erosion, thereby making the island extra resilient to sea stage rise. Moreover, the residing shorelines minimized harm from Hurricanes Helene and Milton in 2024, defending a lot of the coast and vegetation throughout the Alafia Banks and the birds that depend on this habitat.

This text was revealed within the Audubon Florida Naturalist Winter 2025 problem.