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RefugeHere's a program from our archives.ambience: Terns This month, on Great Gull Island off the coast of Connecticut on Long Island Sound, thousands of terns are nesting and preparing to raise their young. I'm Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet.Hays: We're lucky to be able to follow a group of Terns like this. Helen Hays is Director of the Great Gull Island Project. She's been returning for twenty-eight years to watch the Tern's nesting season.Hays: I think you have a certain admiration for these species-- these individuals that make this trip for fifteen or thirty years. Come back to the same sites. Raise young. Under different circumstances; sometimes there's fish, sometimes there aren't. But they keep going.The terns winter in South America, but return here every summer to nest. And over the years, with the increased use of beaches for human recreation, having an island sanctuary has proved to be a lifesaver.Hays: In the last few years, nesting along the east coast, numbers have gone down. Gulls have taken over many of the sites where terns formerly nested. So we're interested in being able to encourage a group of terns, at this location at least, when most of the other locations in the Sound are no longer very good for them. I think along the east coast, particularly in this area where there are a lot of people who should be able to go to beaches it's not possible for terns to occupy every beach. So there's only a few places where terns can nest here. And this is one of them. I think that terns can use places that humans really don't want to use. And so we're trying to encourage them to use those. It's the only way they'll be able to survive in this area.We've been listening to a program from our archives. If you want to hear more, check out our podcast. I'm Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.