© 2024
Virginia's Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

State Considers Constructing Sea Bird Island

Virginia Tech

Virginia’s Department of Transportation has now paved an island where about 25-thousand nesting sea birds and their chicks have spent spring and summer.  It’s not clear what they will do when they return from their winter homes, but state officials are now considering creating an island for them.

Over the years, thousands of terns and gulls – some of them threatened here in Virginia – nested near the Hampton Roads Bridge and Tunnel complex.  The island kept them and their chicks safe from predators like foxes and raccoons, but VDOT has now paved the area.  Scientists at Virginia Tech say birds migrating north this spring may not find a suitable replacement, but Ryan Brown, Executive Director of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, is hopeful.

“When the island is not available, they will show up in other places," he predicts. "There are probably some areas  where there isn’t a lot of development currently that may be likely locations for these birds.”

Even so, he’s started meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers to explore the idea of building a new island for the birds.

“Now that is a long-term process -- a couple of years for it to be completed. You’ve got to think about impacts to aquatic species, other interests in the area – in this case the military and aircraft interests.”

Once that’s done, Brown says, the state would have to find a suitable source of dredged material – sand, rock and mud, for construction of an island and, of course, it will have to find money for such a project.  

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief
Related Content