Audubon Society to install educational kiosk signs at various boat ramps around Franklin County

 The Franklin County Commission has agreed to allow the Audubon Society to install educational kiosk signs at various boat ramps around the area to alert boaters to our nesting shorebirds.

The Audubon Society will now work with the county Parks department to decide which boat ramps would be good locations for the signs.

A variety of protected birds are currently nesting on Franklin County’s beaches and other sites, including terns, black skimmers, snowy plovers and Wilson’s plovers. 

Most of these species nest in the open and lay well-camouflaged eggs directly on the sand, making them nearly invisible to predators and to the untrained human eye. 

Just approaching a bird is enough to flush birds away from their nest. 

When birds are forced to fly off their eggs, it exposes the chicks to predators and to the impacts of the Sun.

Many beach nesting areas are marked to keep people away.

In Franklin County many birds also nest on the old St. George Island bridge causeway, and on the island near the big hump of the Apalachicola bridge.

Those area are only accessible by boat and are off limits to humans through August.

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