The piping plover (Charadrius melodus) is a small migratory shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America. There are three populations of piping plover: subspecies C. m. circumcinctus which has one population that occurs on the shorelines of the Great Lakes and another population that occurs along the rivers and lakes in the Northern Great Plains, as well as subspecies C. m. melodus that occursalong the Atlantic Coast. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service uses Northern Great Plains to include the piping plover population that breeds from Alberta, Canada to Colorado; however, some sources refer to piping plovers in Canada as the Prairie Canada population.