This is interesting from a scientific perspective, but it’s almost certainly bad for these birds.” “But as soon as this disturbance comes - (another) massive rocket launch - it’s bad news. “The little pebbles (small pieces of debris) are providing them habitat,” he said, then pointed to the launch site just a few hundred feet away. Remarkably, the snowy plovers were adapting and using the debris field as a new habitat.īut to LeClaire, it was a scary realization. He counted seven nests constructed among the rubble, the birds’ earth-tone eggs matching the color of the rusted and charred remnants of the launchpad. When walking around the area in early June, LeClaire, who works with the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program, was shocked to find several snowy plovers back in the area and nesting in that debris. SpaceX’s controversial launch - and subsequent explosion - of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, blasted scattered debris up to the size of small boulders all across the delicate ecosystem around the launchpad in April. The launch tower juts out of pristine Boca Chica State Park like a futuristic steeple that can be seen from more than 5 miles (8 kilometers) away on a clear day. The bird was a snowy plover, LeClaire said, a species that’s rapidly declined in the area over the past five years since SpaceX started actively testing and launching rockets there. “Which likely means it has a nest out here.” “We’ve got a bird that’s acting really distressed,” said the wildlife biologist, stopping in his tracks and quickly peering through his binoculars. With the towering SpaceX launch site behind him, Justin LeClaire spotted something astonishing in a grassy, sandflat mosaic of protected wilderness on the southern tip of Texas, near the Gulf of Mexico.
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