PELLSTON — A seaplane landed on Douglas Lake at the University of Michigan Biological Station Tuesday, June 6, to pick up a researcher known widely for her work saving piping plovers since the mid-1980s.
For more than 40 years Dr. Francie Cuthbert has helmed an intensive plover recovery and also a captive rearing and re-release program at the U-M Biological Station that has brought the Great Lakes population of the federally endangered shorebird back from brink of extinction.
She is taking this flight over Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, though, to turn her attention to Caspian terns.
“They are a high-priority conservation species,” said Cuthbert, a professor in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota.
Last year large numbers of Caspian terns in northern Lake Michigan died from bird flu.
Cuthbert is a member of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service team analyzing the impact of that event as part of Great Lakes waterbird conservation research.
“By taking photographs from the air, I can count the number of birds that survived from the 2022 mortality event,” Cuthbert said. “We are looking for Caspian tern colonies to get an estimate on the number of nesting pairs this year because last year record mortality was caused by bird flu. More than 1,600 individuals were found dead in northern Lake Michigan.”
On the ground, other researchers are traveling to the same sites to directly count nests.
“The Caspian tern is representative of the Great Lakes,” Cuthbert said. “Anybody who sees one is in awe because they look like a prehistoric bird. They’re pretty spectacular. Bright red beak. Raucous call. Black cap.”
The Caspian tern is the largest species of tern in the world. Across the U.S. Great Lakes in 2018, Cuthbert said there were only an estimated 5,000 pairs.
“That’s a very tiny number,” Cuthbert said. “They are found nesting here in the Great Lakes but in limited numbers. And in some of the states they have endangered or threatened status.”
Cuthbert and Scott Haley, UMBS facilities manager, soared across the Mackinac Bridge to Saint Ignace, following the shoreline along northern Lake Huron to the mouth of the St. Marys River. They flew up the river and over the Soo Locks and out to Lake Superior to Whitefish Bay and Tahquamenon Island. Then they cut across the UP to come back to Pellston and UMBS on Douglas Lake.
“I’m actually visiting about 21 sites that have been used since the mid-1970s until now by Caspian terns for nesting,” Cuthbert said.
As part of the flight, Cuthbert also is looking for common tern colonies through an effort by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.
“I’m doing double duty,” Cuthbert said.
To get a complete picture of the bird flu’s impact on the waterbirds, Cuthbert plans to fly more routes this summer including Saginaw Bay, northern Lake Michigan and Grand Traverse Bay.
Cuthbert said she has done waterbird work out of the U-M Biological Station “since the beginning of time” for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
However, Cuthbert is a legend at the scientific field station in northern Michigan for more than her professional career, which is illustrious in itself.
Cuthbert boasts a long history at UMBS not only as a researcher, but as a teaching assistant and instructor for the Biology of Birds undergraduate course.
What fascinates new students each year is that Cuthbert was a "camp kid" too, having spent early summers at UMBS where her parents conducted research and took classes.
“I remember running around playing with other kids when I was four or five years old,” Cuthbert said. “My dad studied black terns in the Indian River marsh. Who would’ve guessed I would’ve ended up studying terns too? Childhood experiences truly have a big impact. This is a special place.”
Watch the video of Cuthbert’s flight over the U.P. on the UMBS YouTube website.
