SEASIDE – A project to provide a nesting place for the “near-threatened” Heermann’s gull will come to fruition on Saturday when the artificial habitat is launched onto Roberts Lake in Seaside.

“We will be assembling and launching the raft this weekend,” said Blake Matheson, Monterey Audubon Society board president. “Seaside’s Heermann’s gulls are the only individuals breeding in the United States.”

The raft is a 20-foot by 20-foot floating, but anchored, nesting habitat for the gulls that will cost about $50,0000 to build and maintain by the Audubon Society.

The city of Seaside “will close off parking spaces starting late Friday morning, to allow space for the raft work” at Roberts Lake, said Gloria Stearns, Seaside economic development program manager.

According to Matheson, “the raft has been constructed in segments by an expert who has built these kinds of artificial nesting platforms in the past.”

Floating Islands West is the area’s distributor of BioHaven Floating Islands. The islands have been used around the globe for wetland restoration, safe waterfowl nesting sites, shoreline restoration, stormwater management and more.

Heermann’s gull is a species that is classed as “near-threatened” with extinction by Birdlife International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, but is not protected under the Federal or State Endangered Species acts.

In the 1990s a group of Heermann’s gulls began nesting on an artificial island that was once in Roberts Lake. Those pioneering water fowl became the only breeding Heermann’s gulls in the United States. But by 2007, the island had eroded away. After that the birds attempted to nest on commercial buildings in Seaside with poor results.

In June last year, the gull’s rooftop nesting place was destroyed when the McDonald’s restaurant across from the lake was hit by a car and burnt to the ground.

“The species main colony is at Isla Rasa in Mexico, where the birds are threatened by a variety of pressures including climate change which is changing the area’s ecology and raising sea levels,” said Matheson. “The birds breeding in Seaside have established an important foothold for the species to facilitate a northward range shift.”

Matheson added that recent years have shown the Heermann”s gulls need a safe, protected place to nest, away from individual privately-owned rooftops where they are exposed to a variety of risks.

In 2016, for example, a property owner caused a breeding effort to fail when he placed netting over active nests.

Roberts Lake in Seaside is a 5.7-acre park area bordered by Del Monte and Canyon Del Rey boulevards, and Highway 1.

Once the nesting habitat is placed on the lake, it is not known if the gulls will come to it naturally or have to be enticed.

“It is peak nesting season currently and some Heermann’s gull pairs have already established territories at commercial rooftop locations in Seaside,” said Matheson. “Once the platform is launched, some could naturally divert to the raft in coming weeks, if they don’t have an active nesting attempt underway elsewhere already.”

Decoys will be positioned on the raft and various strategies will be employed to entice the fowl to maximize the island’s attractiveness.

It is possible the Heermann’s gulls will not begin using the island until next year making it open for other animals to takeover the raft as their own. Some species such as the Western gull could utilize the platform with a neutral or positive impact to the Heermann’s.

“If another species began to take over or adversely impact the Heermann’s gulls, we would probably want to get a permit from the Fish and Wildlife authorities to remove those individuals from the island,” said Matheson.

The gulls have natural predators to worry about also. “The prime example would be Peregrine Falcon which roost on the Embassy Suites. We will be installing ‘chick-hides’ which will give young Heermann’s gulls a place to shelter out of view of aerial predators,” he said.

The island will be visible from the Eco-Recreation Station that was installed last summer at Roberts Lake and children continue to attend classes on water stewardship at the outdoor classroom there. “The natural play area is a unique play opportunity that is free, in a beautiful natural setting,” said Stearns.

“The city of Seaside is excited about this project because it continues to position Seaside as an environmental leader,” said Stearns. “The Eco-Recreation Station recently received two state-level awards, the CPRS Award of Excellence for Park Planning for Roberts Lake and CALED Award of Merit for Collaboration.”

Matheson said the floating nesting site will be an important first development at the lake.

“The adjacent Laguna Grande Park, which in addition to wetland features, hold significant amounts of important riparian habitat, will be a prime target for enhanced management strategies in coming years,” he said.

Stearns added that the SeaStars volunteer paint and clean-up group will be improving Roberts Lake as part of the Seaside Earth Day Celebration, which is a partnership with Sustainable Seaside, on April 28 from 1 to 2 p.m. while the community is welcome to enjoy the festivities on the Seaside City Hall lawn from 2 to 4 p.m.