Shorebirds safe and sound?

While nesting numbers are up on state sanctuary Crab Bank, land mass is down

The birds are back. A screaming horde — pelicans, terns, black skimmers, oyster catchers — teems across Crab Bank the summer after the state makes the rookery island and two others off-limits to boaters.

Meanwhile, Crab Bank continues to erode. The middle of the slender spit of sand in Charleston Harbor was an overwash beach a year ago; it's now underwater at high tide.

"I know," S.C. Department of Natural Resources biologist Felicia Sanders said Wednesday as she watched the spectacle of wings. The eroding rookery "is my number one priority right now."

Crab Bank, at the mouth of Shem Creek, is one of five publicly-owned and protected rookery islands in the state for threatened species of shorebirds such as pelicans.

Three of the islands were designated state sanctuaries in 2006 — Crab Bank, Bird Key Stono at the Stono River inlet, and Deveaux Bank between Seabrook and Edisto islands. Boat landings were banned during the warm weather nesting season and limited to the tidal beach off season.

The islands are the nesting ground for thousands of shorebirds that are a signature of the Lowcountry coast, including the plumed snowy egrets and the tiny, acrobatic least terns.

In recent years, biologists studying an alarming drop in the number of shorebirds statewide found a decline in the number of nests on the three islands. Where the nests had been they found foot and paw prints.

This year, on Crab Bank alone, the number of pelican nests is up by one-third. The number of black skimmer and royal tern nests has more than tripled. Black skimmers and gold-billed terns have recolonized the once-abandoned Bird Key.

The ban was controversial: The islands were a favorite fishing site, shore break and party beach for boaters. But since the ban, a few warnings have been written and no one has been arrested, Sanders said. The lone researcher allowed on the islands has boaters yell at her to get off, she said.

Crab Bank, in the busy harbor just off the shipping channel, was the most visited island.

"We don't see prints. You go out there now and the skimmers are nesting right to the edge. If there were dogs, you wouldn't see that happening. This is a real feel-good story for the people of South Carolina," Sanders said.

No sooner had the ban been put in place last summer than biologists noticed Crab Bank abruptly eroding. More birds are nesting there than before, but the nests are largely on one end of the island and almost on top of one another.

The Natural Resources Department is talking with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which dredges the shipping channel, about possible fixes for the erosion. The problem is money.

"We would love to do something," said Army Corps spokeswoman Connie Gillette. "But we need authorization and appropriation."

Reach Bo Petersen at bpetersen@postandcourier.com or 745-5852.