Migrating and resident shorebirds depend on the South Carolina coast to rest, nest and survive. As development, recreation and a changing shoreline put increasing pressure on these birds and their habitats, Felicia Sanders M ’00 has dedicated her career to protecting them. Today, her work has earned her recognition as one of the nation’s leading coastal bird conservationists.
Small waves slap against the hull of the boat as it makes its way down the North Edisto River toward the Atlantic Ocean late one afternoon in mid-April.
Ahead, at the river’s mouth, is Deveaux Bank Seabird Sanctuary. From a distance, it looks like a large sandbar. But as the boat moves closer, the sandspit island reveals more of itself.
Shorebirds walk along the tideline foraging for clams, marine worms, shrimp and crabs. A strip of beach where laughing gulls and pelicans gather gives way to low-lying dunes dotted with marsh grasses. Here, one of the Atlantic’s largest brown pelican colonies has begun to nest.
Felicia Sanders surveys the shoreline from the boat’s helm when she points to the sky. “There,” she says, as about a dozen birds with long, curved beaks fly in low over the water before landing on the barrier island.
Hudsonian whimbrel, a migratory shorebird that South Carolina has designated as a species of greatest conservation need.
Soon, another line of whimbrels flies in. Then another and another. Before long, even though it’s still early in their migration season, more than 1,000 whimbrels have settled on the barrier island to await nightfall.
Every morning, the whimbrels leave the sandspit island to spread out and feed along the coast, sometimes traveling up to 30 miles. Every night, they fly back to Deveaux Bank, the largest known whimbrel roost in the world, to sleep.
For Sanders, a biological sciences alumna who leads the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources’ (SCDNR) coastal bird program, the scene never gets old.
“Seeing them come in is spectacular,” Sanders says. “But in the morning, when they all lift off at the same time, it’s breathtaking.
“When you see that, you’ll really do anything you can to protect these birds.”
For two and a half decades, that’s what Sanders has done.
She has helped establish seabird sanctuaries, restore disappearing habitat, track migratory shorebirds across hemispheres and educate thousands of people about one simple reality: Without protected coastal habitat, many of these birds may not survive.
Sanders rarely uses the words “me” or “my” when talking about the work that has made her one of the most respected coastal bird conservationists in the country and earned her the Order of the Palmetto, South Carolina’s highest civilian honor; the American Ornithological Society Conservation Practitioner Award; and the Southeastern Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Biologist of the Year.
“It’s always ‘we,’” says Pat Jodice, a professor in the Clemson University Department of Forestry and Environmental Conservation and a research scientist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). “She won’t take credit for a lot of the work she’s done because it takes a lot of people. She is often the one identifying science needs for these bird species, and the USGS conducts research to help inform the SCDNR and other managers as they make conservation decisions.”
Jodice credits Sanders with shaping the direction of coastal bird research in South Carolina. “She really has had a tremendous impact in guiding scientific research to address emerging concerns and gaps in knowledge,” he says. “It’s hard to think about the science that might not have been done if she hadn’t been here.”
Outsized Significance
South Carolina has just 187 miles of Atlantic coastline. Ecologically, though, it carries outsized significance. It is one of the last relatively intact stretches of coastal habitat on the East Coast, making the state disproportionately important for birds moving through the Atlantic flyway.
“I think it’s because of South Carolina’s long history of land conservation,” Sanders says. “We still have extensive stretches of undeveloped coastal habitat, including the ACE Basin, Cape Romain, the Santee Delta and many other protected, wild coastal areas. That’s something we should all be really proud of.”
Species ranging from brown pelicans and black skimmers to red knots and American oystercatchers can be found on or in the state’s barrier islands, tidal creeks, mudflats and estuaries. Some stay year-round. Others are just passing through, making a crucial stop in a yearly migration that can stretch tens of thousands of miles.
“Research by the USGS and others has shown that the islands and beaches along South Carolina’s coast provide important habitat for nesting and migrating birds,” Jodice says.
Take the red knot, a federally threatened shorebird about the size of a robin. Its journey starts from as far south as Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip of South America. Once they arrive in South Carolina, they still have thousands of miles to go before they reach their Arctic nesting grounds to complete the first half of the nearly 19,000-mile annual round trip.
“Some birds have been banded long enough that we know they have flown at least the distance from the Earth to the moon,” Sanders says.
Scientists once believed all red knots migrating north in the spring traveled along the Atlantic coast and stopped at Delaware Bay before continuing to the Arctic. However, Sanders’ research shows that many birds remain in South Carolina and Georgia for extended periods to rest, feed and recover before making a direct flight toward their Arctic breeding grounds.
“Worldwide, seabird populations have dropped about 70 percent since the 1950s. Shorebird populations are dropping even faster, 70 percent since the 1970s,” Sanders says. “These groups of birds are declining faster than most other groups of birds in North America. They need our help.”
Unprotected Coast
When Sanders joined the SCDNR in 2001, many of the protections birds now depend on did not exist.
Meanwhile, South Carolina’s coastal population was growing rapidly.
“Everybody, including me, wants to be at the coast, so there’s limited habitat where shorebirds can live undisturbed,” Sanders says. “More people have boats and GPS units now, so they can navigate to more areas.”
People camped on the islands where colonies of birds nest and raise their young. Boats landed freely on sandbars. People walked along the beaches, often unaware that shorebirds nest directly on open sand.
Least terns, black skimmers and Wilson’s plovers lay eggs that blend almost invisibly into the beach. Adult birds shade their eggs and chicks from the intense sun and heat. Even brief disturbances from people getting too close can force adults off nests long enough for eggs and chicks to overheat and perish.
Dogs are an even bigger problem.
“All these birds evolved with predators like coyotes and foxes,” Sanders says. “They can’t tell the difference between a family dog and a coyote.”
Historically, colonies were protected only by small, posted areas immediately surrounding nests. But Sanders and her colleagues realized the birds needed more space than that. Sanders pushed for broader seasonal closures.
The new approach closed entire islands or major portions of them during nesting season.
“Soon after expanded protections were implemented, data collected by the USGS and SCDNR found that colonies began responding,” Jodice says. “Black skimmers had been nesting on Crab Bank but typically were unsuccessful. Soon after access was restricted during breeding season, suddenly we had black skimmer chicks on Crab Bank, which they hadn’t had in years.”
Science with Consequences
Much of Sanders’ career has focused on turning research into management.
She collaborates closely with Jodice, who leads the USGS South Carolina Cooperative Research Unit, a federal program hosted at Clemson and designed to connect academic research with natural resource management.
It’s the same unit Sanders worked in while working on her master’s degree in biological sciences at Clemson.
After completing her undergraduate studies at Duke University, she spent about a dozen years working as a field technician. But she decided she wanted to lead a project and knew she had to get a master’s degree.
A research project on red-cockaded woodpeckers brought her to Clemson.
“I absolutely love Clemson. It gave me exactly what I wanted. I use skills I learned there almost every day,” she says. “You don’t realize what diverse opportunities, connections and resources are at Clemson until you go there. I really have always dreamed of being a wildlife biologist. Clemson has helped me live my dream.”
That dream can mean seven-day workweeks, launching boats before dawn, hauling signs and post hole diggers across islands, monitoring bird colonies in intense heat and spending long hours navigating weather and tides.
It is the behind-the-scenes work necessary to build coalitions among scientists, state and federal agencies, nonprofit organizations, graduate student researchers and local communities. It is persuading policymakers to close islands during nesting season despite public resistance. It’s galvanizing grassroots support.
And it has been collecting years of scientific data needed to inform management decisions.
“This is definitely not a nine-to-five job,” she says.
A Living Laboratory
Shortly after Jodice arrived at Clemson in 2002, a graduate student suggested he meet Sanders, who was still early in her career at the SCDNR. The two met at Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge.
“We both realized early on that we brought different skills to the table,” he says. “She knows those islands in ways I don’t because she’s out there all the time. I bring other expertise. Together, we became a really good team.”
Their first major project focused on brown pelicans nesting on islands including Deveaux Bank and in Cape Romain. Sanders had observed that tick infestations were devastating some nesting colonies, causing nest abandonment and chick mortality.
Together, Sanders and Jodice designed a graduate research project to study the problem scientifically.
Other studies examined horseshoe crab eggs and migrating shorebirds, pelican movement patterns, nesting success, habitat use and island management. Still others focused on American oystercatchers and other species of concern.
The research rarely remained confined to academic journals.
“I can go through the graduate students we’ve had and the papers we’ve written and draw direct lines between the research we have done and the management decisions it informed 10 years later,” Jodice says.
Sanders’ influence extends beyond research papers and projects.
“The successes aren’t just data projects and papers. It’s people. The next generation of scientists — that’s one of the goals, and she’s been a huge part of that. She’s been an incredible role model for many of my students,” Jodice says. “Some of those students eventually joined SCDNR themselves, while others lead research programs around the country.”
Cami Duquet M ’27 is one of the biologists Sanders has mentored.
“Felicia has been able to guide research questions so that they have management implications that lead to protection of wildlife,” says Duquet, who has worked with Sanders since 2022. “That’s really unique.”
Originally trained in environmental science at St. Lawrence University in New York, Duquet worked in sea turtle conservation before joining the coastal bird program to work with Sanders.
“I was really motivated by all of the cutting-edge projects Felicia was taking on,” Duquet says. “I really wanted to learn under her.”
In addition to working in the field, Duquet is enrolled in Clemson’s online master’s program in wildlife and fisheries resources, which allows her to combine practical fieldwork with academic training.
“There’s a type of knowledge that you can only get by being in the field,” Duquet says. “Learning how to count birds, identify them, understand their behavior — you get that by being immersed in it.”
The graduate coursework provides a broader scientific context.
“I’m learning about conservation theories and applied techniques that I wouldn’t necessarily encounter while I’m in the field counting birds,” she says.
Much of Duquet’s focus at the SCDNR is educating beachgoers and coastal communities about how to interact with birds in ways that are not harmful. Education, Sanders believes, is crucial to the birds’ well-being.
“I’ve found that most people are accepting of the closures once they understand how critical undisturbed habitat is to the survival of many coastal bird species,” Sanders says. “They just didn’t know how sensitive and important these places are.”
Place of Refuge
One of the projects that fueled Duquet’s desire to join the coastal bird program was Sanders’ discovery of the largest whimbrel roost in the world. Sanders had noticed that the migratory birds disappeared at night. Then, during early morning trips around Deveaux, she saw thousands of birds lifting off the island at dawn.
She estimated about 10,000 to 20,000 whimbrel.
“Nobody believed me,” she says, adding that the Atlantic flyway population estimate is roughly 40,000 birds.
But researchers later confirmed the numbers, and Deveaux Bank became the largest known whimbrel roost in the world. It pushed South Carolina’s coastal bird work into the national and international spotlight and led state lawmakers to close Deveaux Bank annually from March 15 to October 15.
Located off the southern tip of Seabrook Island and 20 miles from Charleston, South Carolina, Deveaux Bank’s importance belies its initial appearance. It is one of the most important coastal bird sites on the East Coast.
Deveaux Bank is not a static island. It’s ephemeral, constantly reshaped by tides, storms and river currents.
First documented as a seabird rookery in the 1930s, Deveaux Bank was later used as a bombing range during World War II. Hurricane David in 1979 and subsequent erosion washed away the island before the sand gradually rebuilt the shoal over time. At its largest, Deveaux reached approximately 220 acres. Although the island is now similar in overall size, much of the sandbar is submerged during high tide. Sanders estimates that only about 80 acres are high enough to support nesting birds.
Because Deveaux Bank is low lying, constantly shifting and surrounded by water with a lot of currents, it is exactly the kind of place coastal birds need — open, isolated and hard for predators to reach. There are no established forests where mammalian predators like foxes and raccoons could hide. Coyotes rarely cross the surrounding currents, and even owls tend to avoid venturing that far offshore.
“Birds feel safe here,” Sanders says. “It’s really a safe haven for lots of nesting and migratory birds.”
As Sanders captains the boat as it leaves Deveaux Bank that April day, she says, “What we’ve accomplished is beyond my wildest dreams.”
But she knows the sands will continue to shift and the work has to go on to make sure the birds continue to find a sanctuary along the South Carolina coast.
Cindy Landrum is a writer for the College of Science.
Photography by David Archer, Cindy Landrum and Jen Jefferson.
Place Worth Protecting
In 2006, South Carolina formally designated key coastal islands owned and managed by the SCDNR as official seabird sanctuaries, a milestone Sanders calls her program’s greatest accomplishment. Together, these protected sites play an important ecological role in a wide array of coastal bird species that nest, migrate or winter in the state.
- Crab Bank, rebuilt in Charleston harbor near Shem Creek using dredge spoils in late 2021, provides prime habitat for pelicans, terns and skimmers. Its proximity to shore allows kayak tours and school groups to safely observe the birds without disturbing them.
- Tomkins Island is a human-made island located at the mouth of the Savannah River. More than 11,000 tern nests have been recorded there in a single season.
- Bird Key-Stono, right off Folly Beach, supports pelicans, gulls and skimmers. It is periodically replenished with dredged sand from nearby waterways.
The state owns other sanctuary islands that are currently underwater and unavailable to nesting birds. “A new island can pop up at the mouth of a river, and suddenly birds are nesting there,” Sanders says. That happened near Deveaux Bank, prompting the SCDNR to expand the sanctuary boundaries.
