Unlimited edition. 18 x 24 inch, museum-quality poster on matte paper.

Just east of my childhood home, Virginia’s barrier islands separate the Atlantic from the salt marshes and mainland. They’re also productive breeding and nesting sites for the piping plover, a federally threatened shorebird species. In the late 1980s, the plover became a regionally charged symbol of the conflict between conservation and economic goals; I sometimes think of the boldly colored little beach sprinter as the mid-Atlantic’s spotted owl. At contentious land use meetings, developers and their supporters would rail against the conservationists (my parents among them) and NIMBYs attempting to block new building projects on the barrier islands. Some of those projects were halted; others moved forward. The plovers had the last laugh, however. Barrier islands are always shifting, and the plovers simply follow the sand. That wasn’t an option for the ~30 houses built on Cedar Island in the 1990s and 2000s. Today, not a one of those houses remains, all washed away by the action of water and wind. The population of breeding plover pairs continues to increase.

Note: These archival poster prints feature rich, appealing colors. I encourage customers to take care in handling them until they are framed/protected for display; the darker colors on the matte paper can be scratched. They ship rolled, so customers need to flatten them before framing (or have their framer do so).

Charitable Sales Model: Whenever one of these poster prints is purchased, a charitable contribution equal to 10% of the print’s cost (or $3.60) is made to a nonprofit working to tackle environmental or social challenges. Read more about my charitable sales model here.