Beachgoers aren’t the only ones enjoying Jacob Riis Park this summer — the piping plovers are as well.
“There’s just so much to love about this little bird and so much to learn from them as well,” said Chris Allieri.
What You Need To Know
Chris Allieri’s NYC Plover Project helps to give an endangered species of bird a safe place to nest while they stay on city beaches
Allieri’s father loved watching birds and keeping a list of his findings
Allieri and his volunteers ask beachgoers to avoid plover habitats while also teaching them about the bird
He is the founder and executive director of the NYC Plover Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the endangered birds during their stay in the city. Scientists said there are about 8,000 of them left in the world.
“The piping plover is especially fragile for a lot of reasons,” Allieri said. “I mean, we have rising seas because of climate change. We have less and less beach because of beach erosion.”
Protecting the environment has long been a calling for the Brooklyn Heights resident. His father was an avid bird watcher.
“My father’s first, like, scrawling of a piping plover… he called ‘The Big Guy,’” Allieri said. “I think that, like, my dad’s, like, love of birds, like, in some ways, like just planted a seed without even me really knowing it.”
Decades later, during the pandemic lockdown, Allieri found his first piping plover. He was at Fort Tilden.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, they exist and they’re here,’” Allieri said. “And then I saw dogs off-leash, people up in the dunes. There were no signs. There was no fences.”
He channeled his fury into action. In the last six years, hundreds of his volunteers have stationed themselves outside protected plover nesting areas on the city’s beaches.
They also run an information booth during the summer at Jacob Riis Park. The organization worked with city and federal officials to put up signs.
It’s all with the goal of steering visitors away from the birds’ protected habitats.
“It was like the perfect opportunity to be able to help birds and also enjoy being out here at the beach in a place that’s really special to me,” said Ambika Thoreson, a volunteer with the NYC Plover Project.
Allieri is now writing a book all about the bird that changed his life. And though his dad is no longer around, Allieri said he knows he would be right there alongside him.
“If I learned one thing from my parents, it is this, it is like: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world,’” Allieri said. “And that’s what my father did each and every day of his life.”
For hatching an initiative to protect the city’s piping plovers, Chris Allieri is our New Yorker of the Week.