On May 24th, members of AYLUS Roslyn came down to Jones Beach to help protect endangered nesting birds. Every year, Jones Beach hosts an Air Show on Memorial Day weekend featuring the US Navy. Thousands of people come to the beach to watch, and inevitably, sometimes people accidentally cross into the protected areas of the beach where they could endanger the birds or their eggs and nests.
In order to protect these birds, we wore bright neon vests and sat near the fenced area to make sure that people would not go into the area. Although it was windy and cold, we still preserved and sat through the cold. Additionally, we rescued a stranded horseshoe crab and returned it to the ocean. Although there were not many people watching the air show, we saw plenty of wildlife. We saw several American Oystercatchers, a congregation of Piping Plovers, a couple of Least Terns, and many sand fleas.
Protecting the habitats of these endangered birds is crucial because they are important to the Jones Beach ecosystem. We really enjoyed volunteering here and we hope to come back next year.
Reporter: Letao Tao
Participants:
Jaden Zhang (4 hours), Josephine Zhang (4 hours), Shinree Zhang (7 hours), Hunter Chen (7 hours), Sofia Chen (7 hours), Joanna Huang (7 hours), Elizabeth Ouyang (7 hours), Lyann Lin (7 hours), Ethan Lin (12th Grade) (7 hours), Ryan Lin (7 hours), Jasmine Lin (7 hours), Letao Tao (7 hours), Anna Shi (7 hours), Zihan Wang (7 hours), Hyun Chavez (7 hours), Justin Li (7 hours), Phillip Wu (7 hours), Izabelle Gu (7 hours)
