Restoration Potential: Potential for restoring to areas of former occurrence are good, provided nesting and foraging habitat remain and human disturbance is minimal.
Preserve Selection and Design Considerations: Key components of preserves designed to protect this taxon include sufficient nesting habitat and extensive, shallow saltwater areas for foraging.
Management Requirements: To prevent disturbance to nesting birds, people on foot, or in boats or jet skis should stay at least 100 meters away from nesting colonies (Rodgers and Smith 1995). Important foraging areas should be protected from development, human disturbance, filling, dredging and pollution, and significant nesting colonies should be protected from human disturbance, predation, or destruction (Paul 1991).
Management Research Needs: Need to precisely determine set-back distances to protect nesting birds from human disturbance. Important foraging areas (breeding and non-breeding habitat) and nesting colonies need to be identified; population censuses need to be improved and conducted on a regular basis to monitor population fluctuations; nesting success needs regular monitoring; key nest predators need to identified; the impact of human subsistence hunting and coastal recreational activities need further study (Paul 1991). Non-disruptive research protocols need to be designed and implemented (Simersky 1971).
Biological Research Needs: Need to determine the impact of nest predation and other factors limiting population size. Need to investigate the potential impact of pesticides washed into foraging areas. Also need to determine juvenile/adult survivorship and nest/natal-site fidelity (Paul 1991).