Group for the East End Pursues Unified Efforts to Sustain Osprey Population

Over the last three decades, Group for the East End and its partners have built, installed and maintained scores of Osprey nesting platforms across the East End. These efforts have been critical to the Osprey’s recovery. Despite the success of these efforts in increasing the Osprey population, an adequate coordination of all Osprey conservation efforts is lacking.

In response to this need, Group for the East End is developing a comprehensive strategy to create an organized, long-term monitoring and maintenance program for Osprey nesting platforms across the region. The success of this program will improve the nesting opportunities for Osprey and provide accurate population and habitat monitoring data that is essential to sustained recovery over time.

In its early efforts to unify the management of osprey nesting platforms and population monitoring, Group for the East End will work with its conservation partners this year to repair or replace at least one nesting platform in each of the five East End towns. Volunteers interested in helping with this repair work or monitoring nesting sites should call 631-765-6450 x208.

The Osprey is an important species in salt marsh habitats and it reinforces a healthy East End environment overall. Historically, eastern Long Island was home to the largest numbers of breeding Osprey in the world. Tragically, due to the impacts associated with exposure to the persistent pesticide DDT, Osprey numbers plummeted in the 1960s and 1970s due to thinning eggshells — a side effect of the chemical accumulating in the birds’ fatty tissue. As a result, Osprey nearly became extirpated in New York State.

According to the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), “the breeding population declined from an estimated 1,000 active nests in the 1940s between New York City and Boston, to an estimated 150 nests in 1969.” Since the ban of DDT in New York in 1971, and in the rest of the country in 1972, the population has slowly been making a comeback.

According to the Long Island Sound Study, a total of 222 nesting pairs were recorded on Long Island in 1984, and around this time the DEC downgraded the species classification from “endangered” to “threatened.” In 1999, the species was downgraded again to “special concern,” due to rebounding population numbers. As of 2002, there were 578 nesting pairs recorded on Long Island.

Since the early-1980s, conservation efforts to restore populations of the once abundant Osprey have been quite successful. During this time, Group for the East End has worked with many other local organizations as a leading advocate for Osprey conservation in the region.

As the species began to recover in the mid-1980s, it became apparent that sufficient and viable nest sites did not exist.  Once prone to nesting in dead trees or on remote islands, the next generation of “Fish Hawks” would face a changing landscape influenced by ever-increased development.

Under these conditions, Osprey began using telephone poles, utility towers, abandoned buildings, barns, and many other structures that offered increased opportunity, but significant hazards. To alleviate this problem, conservation groups began erecting specially designed poles with nesting platforms, which eventually led to the successful recovery efforts that persists today. To view the Osprey nesting sites on the South Fork that were catalogued by Group staff this past winter, please visit:  http://tinyurl.com/ospreynests