Community Service Project

The Importance of Animals

At 9am on a hot Saturday in July, seven child volunteers gathered on the beach in Sea Girt to listen to the wisdom of Nancy Maclearie of the Wreck Pond Association and advocate for the endangered Piping Plover and Least Tern chicks that make their nests on the beach. We learned all about the birds and their habits. For instance, a baby chick becomes a fledgling before it becomes an adult and it spreads its wings and looks as if it is dancing while trying to learn how to fly. We even saw a fledgling do this! We also learned that a Least Tern's eggs are speckled so that they blend in with the sand and can be kept safe from predators. These Mommy birds also place a large object they can recognize by their nests so that they can see the egg upon their return after leaving.

We took in much more about what has contributed to these birds being placed on the endangered species list. Even though we could see the birds, we used binoculars to get a closer look. We could see little chicks being cared for carefully by their parents. It didn't take long to realize that these families deserve a chance just like we do and we made plans to create signs to help remind humans to not trespass on the carefully labeled and marked grounds. Letting dogs run unleashed on the beach is dangerous for these fragile chicks, and although the area where they nest is marked off, Nancy still has to volunteer endless hours to watch the site and make sure that humans don't destroy the birds' nests.

For more information or to find out what you can do to help please contact Nancy at 732-449-8764. With just a tiny bit of effort we can make sure that the chicks that have hatched will become adults and that the chicks yet to hatch make it safely into this world.

Thank you so much to the child volunteers who participated in this community service project as you are truly making a difference! For more images from this event please visit our image gallery. For a list of other Children for Charity volunteer opportunities for kids please visit our Children for Charity home page.