Texas rebuilt a vanished bird island; it now hosts over 2,500 nesting pairs

Dickinson Bay lost its charm over the decades. The small estuarine pocket on Galveston Bay's western shore once hosted thriving colonies of waterbirds on three dredged islands. But then the islands completely vanished. During the 1980s and 1990s, subsidence, erosion, and a string of tropical storms swept the islands beneath the water. And with them went crucial nesting grounds for terns, herons, pelicans, and gulls. But then people who cared about them brought them back.How Galveston Bay brought its birds backIn the 1930s, three islands were built in Dickinson Bay, using material dredged from the channel. But by the 1990s, all three islands had disappeared. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (Service) Coastal Program, which has long monitored the colonial waterbirds, saw a chance to restore the lost habitat.