Story 2.0: Stitching a security blanket for the threatened common tern

(05/07/09) Almost ten years ago, conservationists tried a novel experiment to protect the common tern, a threatened native bird on the St. Lawrence River. The tern's nesting habitat was getting overrun by gulls and geese. So a group of people sort of faked that habitat on the Seaway's giant navigation buoys, known as "nav cells". The plan worked. In 2006, the number of tern nests on the St. Lawrence was the highest recorded since 1982. The tern restoration project is a collaboration between Save the River, the Thousand Islands Land Trust, and Massena-based biologist Lee Harper. And the group has not stood pat. For our series "Story 2.0" - revisiting reports from the NCPR archive - David Sommerstein returns to the Thousand Islands to see the latest in tern-saving technology - a wire grid that keeps tern chicks in and other aggressive birds out.