Endangered Terns Starting to Thrive at Ormond Beach : Wildlife: Joy over the least tern’s re-emergence, however, is accompanied by sadness over the loss of a colony at Point Mugu.

Least terns are making a comeback in Oxnard, but nature has driven the state’s largest colony of the endangered birds from Point Mugu.

At Oxnard’s Ormond Beach, the birds have overcome the problems of pests, people and three-wheeled motorbikes, producing 15 healthy chicks since May.

It’s a notable achievement for the birds, which are an endangered species. For years, five pairs that lived at Ormond Beach saw their nests destroyed by people, other birds, varmints and dogs.

This year a larger colony of the feisty terns has driven away intruders, and stepped-up police patrols have held down damage by illegal three-wheelers.

Happiness about the comeback, however, has been offset by disappointment over the loss of the colony at Point Mugu, just to the southeast. Biologists say some of the Ormond birds may be refugees from Mugu.

At Point Mugu, the Navy kept the public away from the terns’ nesting area. Last summer, more than 100 pairs nested there.

But in May, as young terns found their lifetime mates and began to settle onto the sand to lay eggs, a storm sent waves crashing over the beach. It crushed eggs and washed out nests. Predators ate the remaining eggs.

Soon after the storm, the adult birds abandoned the colony, said Grace Smith, a Point Mugu Navy biologist.

“It’s so sad,” she said. “This year we have none.”

Some of the birds will probably return next year, biologists say.

The least terns are the smallest of the North American terns. White with black masks, they have nine-inch bodies and a 20-inch wingspan. Their high-pitched call is more like a loud squeak than a song. It changes to a strong “kick-kick-kick-kick” when they are alarmed. They feed on marine life.

The birds winter in South America and return to Southern California in April to mate, nest and form colonies. Both male and female protect the nest, taking turns at mealtime.

Two days after the young emerge, the wobbly chicks make their way out of the shallow nests to protected areas behind dunes. Their parents support them for another five weeks.

The colonies are frequently invaded by gulls that blunder through or come looking for eggs. They are greeted by dive-bombing terns, which deposit splats of white waste on their heads.

The birds once numbered in the thousands, with nests from San Francisco to San Diego. As development encroached on beaches, least terns statewide dwindled to about 300 pairs by the early 1970s.

Now their status as an endangered species provides some protection of habitat. The state population has grown to about 1,000 pairs, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Martin Kinney said from his office in Laguna Niguel.

A similar subspecies exists along the Mississippi River and on the East Coast, but the California least terns are the only ones of their particular subspecies in the world.

“With all the development in Southern California, once a colony is destroyed, there is no new habitat being created,” Kinney said. “The remaining colonies have to be protected if we’re ever going to get the bird to a level where it can recover.”

Kinney said that’s hard, with only 15 wildlife officers from Ventura to the Mexican border.

In Ventura, Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Scott Johnston, whose area stretches from Pismo Beach to Ventura, agreed and complimented citizen advocates of the birds.

“I need all the help I can get,” Johnston said. “The local help has been absolutely critical to recovering the birds here.”

Pro-tern groups include the Audubon Society, which has helped 25 pairs survive at the mouth of the Santa Clara River at McGrath State Beach in Oxnard.

They also include the Ormond Beach Observers, headed by Roma Armbrust of Oxnard. She said she began asking authorities to intervene in behalf of the birds after off-road vehicles destroyed nests at Ormond Beach on July 4, 1989.

“People say, ‘So what?,’ ” she said of the birds’ survival. “But the least tern is just the tip of the iceberg of our ecosystem. We are in a sense turning our backs on ourselves, because we can’t survive where other species can’t survive.”

At Ormond Beach, authorities say, warning signs should help preserve eggs through the nesting season, which lasts through August.

Posts and tape surrounding the one-acre colony seem to be keeping the surfers and people away, Johnston said. But the terns have little defense against unleashed dogs or off-road vehicles.

“It’s just the 1% of people who don’t know about the birds who can destroy a whole colony,” Johnston said. “It’s not intentional. It’s just ignorance, really.”

Some people, however, wonder whether the city really wants what’s best for the birds.

“Yes, the police are patrolling,” said Al Sanders, who lives nearby. “But there is still access to the beach, and that seems to be common knowledge to the off-road vehicle riders. It also seems to be common knowledge when the patrolling takes place.”

Steven Kinney, redevelopment director for the city, said Oxnard’s financial troubles, which have already forced the Police Department to cut back patrols citywide, limit the time the police can devote to Ormond Beach, which is one of the city’s redevelopment areas.

“When there is difficulty providing enough officers to fight crime, I would have trouble providing round-the-clock protection for the terns,” Kinney said. He said, however, that the city would consider staggering the days and hours that the beach is patrolled.

Kinney said the city has shown a commitment to saving the colony.

“We have recently gone from never having spent any money to protect the least terns to spending tens of thousands in the last six months,” he said, referring to police patrols and new gates to reduce vehicular beach access.

Sanders voiced suspicion of city endorsement of a plan to build a marina and housing development at Ormond Beach.

“There are many people who wonder if the city has an unofficial policy to allow the birds to be run out of there,” Sanders said. “Everybody knows the city wants to develop down there.”

The plan, by the Baldwin Co., has been scaled back from 10,000 to 5,000 homes, and a proposed marina has been dropped, Kinney said. The absence of an endangered species at the beach could remove an obstacle to development, but Oxnard’s agenda is clearly in favor of the birds, he said.

Regardless of the city’s plans, Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Johnston said, the law requires protection of the terns.

“There is no way they could go through with it,” Johnston said of any unspoken plan to drive the birds away. “The Endangered Species Act is extremely clear that there can’t be any destruction of habitat. They will have to have formal consultations with us before any development.”