Giving shorebirds space on the beach makes a big difference

When Ashley Dayer was walking on the beach with her 8-year-old son recently, he stopped her before she got too close to a group of shorebirds. "Momma, stop. We have to walk around the shorebirds," he told her. Dayer smiled. That moment was the perfect example of the human behavior change she and conservation partners have spent more than a decade trying to encourage along beaches used by both people and imperiled shorebirds.