A diminutive shorebird and a string of villages both dependent on the same necklace of barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina are being pinched in a precarious setting that demonstrates the folly of trying to control nature.
While the idea of a national seashore along the Outer Banks of North Carolina might have been a grand idea in the 1930s, before the advent of roads on the barrier islands of Bodie, Hatteras, and Ocracoke, before sport utility vehicles, and before summer vacations sent millions of Americans to the beach, 21st-century realities are dealing a harsh blow to wildlife species and local communities alike.
In the landscape of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, a landscape accustomed to being shoved around by the Atlantic Ocean, shrinking habitat for both the piping plover and for surf fishermen has generated a controversy for the National Park Service, one threatening to rival that which has swirled around snowmobiles and Yellowstone National Park for more than a decade.
While three species of sea turtles -- threatened green sea turtles, endangered leatherback sea turtles, and loggerhead turtles, which are proposed to be listed as endangered -- have come ashore to nest at Cape Hatteras, it is a tiny bird that seemingly casts the greatest shadow over the seashore’s management.
Piping plovers, grayish-white birds with a black neck band, yellow legs, and a distinctive chirp, are somewhat curious in their preference for nesting habitat. They make small depressions in the sand to lay eggs that blend in so well they can easily be overlooked and, unfortunately, easily crushed by feet and tires and available to predators. Unfortunately, for Cape Hatteras beach-goers, these birds nest from late spring through July, and restrictions imposed to protect the birds block some stretches of seashore from those who prefer to drive their vehicles on the beach.
No one -- not the National Park Service, not the environmental and conservation groups in the community, nor the off-road vehicle organizations -- denies that a plan is needed to manage off-road vehicle traffic on the seashore. But that’s about all they seem to agree on.
“Are we providing for the birds, or are we missing providing for the people who want to come down here and use it as a recreational area?” wonders John Couch, the president of the Outer Banks Preservation Association that supports more off-road vehicle use of the seashore than the Park Service proposes to allow.
To continue the Yellowstone analogy, imagine if the Old Faithful complex, Lake Village, Tower-Roosevelt, Grant Village, Mammoth Hot Springs, and West Thumb all were unincorporated communities surrounded by Yellowstone. Those communities, if they existed, would be just as deeply concerned about Yellowstone management decisions as those who live along Cape Hatteras are concerned about the national seashore’s management choices.
And like the Yellowstone snowmobile debate, which has raged for more than a decade at a cost to the Park Service of more than $10 million in environmental studies, the Cape Hatteras dispute, brought to a boil in 2007 when environmental groups sued the Park Service because it never formally developed an ORV management plan, won’t likely be settled when seashore officials deliver their management plan late this year.
“It’s clear that both sides are lined up, and we’re not going to be able to avoid completing the plan and regulation this time,” says Mike Murray, who upon his arrival at the seashore as its superintendent in 2005 was handed the mess. “I think it’s likely to result in litigation.”
* * * * *
Conflicts don’t normally arise overnight, and the one at Cape Hatteras certainly didn’t. This one slowly evolved as more and more Americans came to enjoy beach vacations.
When World War II broke out, piping plover populations along the Atlantic coast were peaking and the national seashore was little more than an idea on paper. At war’s end, though, the birds and the seashore headed in different directions.
Cape Hatteras, which was officially established in 1953, soon became a name brand for summer vacations, an attraction that nurtured tiny villages along the Outer Banks with vacation rentals, grocery stores, restaurants, service stations, fishing, and surf-pounded beaches.
Piping plovers, though, lost more and more habitat up and down the Atlantic seaboard to development and recreational pressures and declined precipitously, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. On January 10, 1986, the bird that blends in so well with its beach habitat was officially designed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act.
Today it seems that more than a few Outer Bank residents would also describe themselves as threatened due to the conflict created by the seashore’s popularity and the bird’s need for beach-front habitat.
Those who envisioned the Cape Hatteras National Seashore in the 1930s were in some cases ahead of their times. While the Wilderness Act was still three decades away from being signed into law, the seashore’s founders saw the seashore containing stretches of “pristine wilderness.” At the same time, the lack of paved roads along Cape Hatteras led those who wished to fish the surf to drive through the dunes and along the beaches. But in the early days, beach traffic was minimal compared to today’s numbers.
Down through the decades, more and more surf casters turned to their vehicles to reach prime fishing spots along the seashore, with Cape Point due south of Buxton and to the east of Frisco being one of the most popular. During the summer high season there are times when an estimated 400 vehicles are parked along a 1-mile stretch of the point, according to the Park Service.
It was just this sort of traffic levels that spurred Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society to sue the Park Service in 2007 for lacking an official ORV management plan -- something both President Nixon and then President Carter had directed be done for federal lands -- one that took the nesting shorebirds and sea turtles into consideration.
“You know, it’s not the plover alone. It’s the other nesting birds,” says Chris Canfield, executive director of Audubon North Carolina. “Audubon has had a presence in the region for 100 years, and when we really decided we had to do something, including the court case, it was because the numbers had reached lows that were below anything we could find on record.”
Mr. Canfield agrees with Mr. Couch and other ORVers that a lot of factors are behind the downfall of breeding plovers at Cape Hatteras.
“You can talk about predators, you can talk about weather. Well, we have to control all the 'controllables' we can,” he says. “We can’t control the weather. We can do something about predators, and the Park Service tries. But we certainly can control the people factor, so that’s what we’re also trying to do.”
One of the things that definitely can’t be controlled, however, is the nature of barrier islands and Atlantic hurricanes, storms that some say are becoming more potent as the climate changes.
Installing permanent structures on coastal barrier beachfronts such as Cape Hatteras amounts to a declaration of war on one of nature's most powerful processes. The hurricanes, nor'easters, and other great storms that thrash the coast pack vast amounts of energy. Coastal barriers and the tidal marshes behind them function as the mainland's first line of defense, absorbing the impact of ferocious winds and surging water.
Huge amounts of sand get pushed around (some of it moving offshore), new channels are cut by overwash, and in these and other ways the coastal barriers get rearranged. By destroying dunes and constructing beachfront structures -- including defenses such as rip-rap, seawalls, groins, and jetties -- developers work directly against these natural processes and place property and people at exceptional risk.
The National Park Service began to realize this in the 1970s when it decided to halt its longstanding practice of building up and maintaining sand dunes along Cape Hatteras. It was a practice that helped maintain North Carolina 12, which runs the length of the seashore and connects the villages, but one that also was forever at conflict with nature.
The man-made dunes, in effect, tried to create a landscape contrary to that of a barrier island, one that can shift with storms that move sands around. Not only do these dunes need constant maintenance to withstand the Atlantic Ocean, but they create steep drop-offs that have narrowed the seashore’s beaches in places and, in many cases, left behind small stretches of habitat that are favored both by the piping plover and many surf fishermen.
* * * *
A federal judge in 2008 approved a consent decree that required the Park Service to come up with an acceptable ORV management plan. Arguably before the ink dried on that order, the Park Service staff at Cape Hatteras found itself navigating treacherous waters in its role as referee, peacemaker, and rule-maker bound by the Endangered Species Act and the National Park Service Organic Act.
“Certainly, there have been instances of it getting ugly,” says Superintendent Murray, who has seen a lot of controversy in a Park Service career that has taken him through Yellowstone, Yosemite, Everglades and Cape Cod National Seashore. “When we had our advisory committee, basically a federal advisory committee, some of the local environmental representatives got threats. I don’t know if they were death threats. Some of them got nails in their driveways, they were put on ‘Wanted’ posters all across the island with directions to their house, ‘This guy wants to shut down beach access, go let him know what you think.’
“We had to relocate meeting locations. We had been trying to meet at Hatteras Island, but we didn’t have any Park Service-controlled venues, and so we had demonstrations and unruly behavior and some reports of vandalism of members’ cars while there were in meetings,” the superintendent continues. “In our public hearings there’s certainly a lot of angry language.
“One of the newspaper articles said I was threatened. I don’t recall. There were so many angry statements I’m not sure I picked up on which one was threatening me. Certainly we receive hate mail, our employees are refused service on Hatteras, and the community has mixed feelings about it.
“They do nothing to stop it, but some community and ORV leaders express regret that it’s come to that.”
For a year in the lead-up to the agency’s draft ORV plan and accompanying environmental impact statement, a committee with representatives from both the environmental and ORV communities met regularly over the course of a year-and-a-half, but met with little success in finding compromise.
“The committee worked really hard,” points out Superintendent Murray. “We had 11 formal meetings, which was 20 total meeting days. Every couple months there would be a two-day meeting. But we had seven subcommittees that worked on different parts of the plan. They had conference calls and subcommittee meetings and on and on and on.
“They made progress on stuff,” he goes on, “but it kind of boiled down to, after all this effort, the parties on the committee were able to agree to the easy things, like speed limits, or vehicle requirements. They couldn’t agree to the hard things, like how are we going to manage ORV use in the real sensitive bird nesting areas?
“So, towards the end of the process, we created a special subcommittee, called the integration group - sort of three from each side and three sort of neutral parties - to try to work out the final recommendation for the committee to consider. And they couldn’t do it. They couldn’t agree to anything.”
As a result, the seashore’s planning staff came up with a half-dozen alternatives that went into the DEIS, alternatives that ranged from no changes in management to the preferred alternative, which was culled from much of the committee’s work, and which has brought howls from both ORVers and environmentalists.
“We expected that nobody would like the preferred alternative, and it seems like it’s turning out to be true,” says Superintendent Murray.
* * * * *
Indeed, neither the conservation groups nor the ORV organizations like the preferred alternative.
While the conservationists say the 16 miles of beach that would be permanently closed to ORV use is too little, the ORV groups say it’s too much.
Seashore officials, meanwhile, point out that at various times throughout the year more, and less, of the remaining 52 or so miles of beaches will be closed, or opened, depending on nesting seasons.
At the National Parks Conservation Association, Kristen Brengel, director of legislative and government relations, believes too much is being made by ORV groups over the proposed closures. After all, she notes, beach closures along Cape Hatteras are nothing new to the national seashore as many of the seashore’s villages routinely close sections of beach to ORV traffic to accommodate pedestrian beach-goers.
“In terms of just the off-road vehicle use, there have been seasonal closures for a long time specifically to enhance tourism. The fact of the matter is is that Cape Hatteras and the villages and towns throughout it have been handling seasonal closures for a very long time,” Ms. Brengel says. “So to say that now, with the closures specifically for off-road vehicles use, they’re not used to it, I don’t think that that’s a true statement.
“I find it kind of disingenuous to say that they’re not used to this when they specifically do it to get tourism dollars during the summer. That’s their bread-and-butter,” she adds. “And to make it seem like a closure here and there to protect some turtle and bird nesting is such a concept that’s wildly out of sync with how things have been managed down there is incorrect. If they do it for people and sunbathers, why can’t they do it for birds and turtles when the Park Service is legally required to do the latter?”
Mr. Canfield at Audubon North Carolina also notes that relatively few of the seashore’s visitors want to drive on the beaches. In his group’s comments to the draft ORV plan it’s noted that, “A 2003 visitor survey at Cape Hatteras estimated that between 2.7 percent and 4 percent of all visits to the park included beach driving. Even positing significant error in the survey data, and that number is double the maximum reported, then we are still left with the estimate that under 10 percent of all visitors to the seashore choose to drive on the beach during their visits.”
* * * * *
You can’t discuss the future of recreation and wildlife on Cape Hatteras National Seashore without citing numbers:
* 1,000 meters -- That’s the distance of a buffer zone surrounding plover nests with unfledged chicks that ORVs must honor; the buffer for pedestrians is 300 meters. The 1,000-meter buffer, notes Mr. Couch, “is bigger than the parking lot of the New Orleans Superdome.”
* ~70 and 16 -- Approximate miles of coastline within the seashore, and miles that would be closed year-round to ORV access, a number criticized as too low by environmental groups and two high by ORV interests.
* 2.2 million -- Approximate number of visitors to Cape Hatteras annually.
* $777.41 million -- Tourism spending recorded in Dare County in 2008, an increase of 1.9 percent from 2007.
Other numbers that raise eyebrows were produced by the U.S. Fish and WIldlife Service when it analyzed piping plover habitat from Cape Lookout National Seashore north to Cape Cod National Seashore as part of its work on developing a recovery plan for the birds. The study looked at the quality of piping plover habitat across those seaside landscapes and assessed the potential number of birds it could support. Cape Hatteras, the agency said, had the potential to support 30 breeding pairs.
“Many of the seashores have met or exceeded that predicted potential,” notes Superintendent Murray. “Cape Hatteras is the only one that’s had significant declines since the late ‘80s. All the other areas have had significant improvements.”
According to the USFWS findings, whereas Cape Cod National Seashore had 15 breeding pairs in 1989, by 2007 they had 85; Fire Island National Seashore had three breeding pairs in 1992, and 25 in 2007; Breezy Point, part of Gateway National Recreation Area, had 14 pair in 1989 and 19 in 2007; Sandy Hook, another part of Gateway, had 19 pairs in 1989, and 30 in 2007; Assateague Island National Seashore had 20 pairs in 1989, 64 in 2007; Cape Lookout, just south of Cape Hatteras, had 34 pair in 1989, and 45 in 2007.
“Cape Hatteras in 1989 had 15 pair, 2007 we had six,” said Superintendent Murray. “And the six was an improvement. 20032, 2004, 2005 we had about two pair. So 2006 was the first under the interim (management) plan, it improved to six. It was six again in 2007. 2008, 2009 under the consent decree it increased to 11 in 2008, and then nine pair in 2009, so some improvement both under the interim strategy and then under bump in improvement under the consent decree.”
From his vantage point, Mr. Couch believes the answer for the comparatively poor plover production at Cape Hatteras is obvious to anyone who walks the seashore’s beaches.
“Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the unit area that we are in, represents a marginal area. It is a peripheral area of nesting and wintering birds. Right on the edge. So typically numbers that are within more of the center of a particular area are going to have greater numbers,” he said.
As for the better bird production at Cape Lookout, which is further south, he points out the lack of man-made infrastructure on that seashore.
“They didn’t have any man-made interference. They don’t have the dunes. All the dunes here are man-made. And typically our topography is just like their’s, except the CCC came back in 1933 under Roosevelt and built the dunes,” he said. “They don’t have that here. We don’t have those wash-over areas that plovers seem to like and feed on. Surf comes up and it rolls right back into the ocean.”
And while Cape Hatteras is more built-up than Cape Lookout, with eight villages dotting the seashore, and sees more human and vehicle traffic, Mr. Couch contends that “human interference, whatever it is, is less than 3 percent of what’s going on there (in terms of impacting plover production). By far it is predation and natural causes.”
* * * * *
No doubt, a large part of the problem at Cape Hatteras is a lack of parking. While more than 2 million folks descend on the national seashore annually, finding a parking spot that’s not on the beach can be difficult if not impossible at times.
“There’s no public beach access parking in the villages. They didn’t think of it. They didn’t provide for it,” says Superintendent Murray. “And the seashore has about 1,000 parking spaces spread over 70 miles.”
During the 2007 season, he notes, the lack of parking led to 3,000-4,000 vehicles parking on the beaches.
“So, lack of parking is a big root cause to the dilemma we face today,” he says. “People have become dependent upon driving and parking on the beach.”
Over at the Outer Banks Preservation Association, Mr. Couch agrees there’s a great need for additional parking, a problem he says the Park Service has ignored.
“There’s just not that motivation and initiative out at the Park Service,” he said. “They can cry the money woes and stuff like that, but there is no champion of access in the Park Service these days. I think they give too much time and effort into bird restrictions and closing off areas.”
* * * * *
While seashore officials say they’re trying to satisfy both sides in their management planning, they also point to the laws and regulations they have to follow in managing the seashore.
“We know, and certainly we’re hearing in our public comments loud and clear, that Cape Hatteras is important to the local economy,” says Superintendent Murray, but “We have got to remember the purpose of the parks as stated in the (National Park Service) Organic Act. You know, ‘provide for the enjoyment of same in such manner and such means that will leave them unimpaired.’
“And there’s numerous lawsuits and case law and philosophical statements from great conservation leaders over the years that the rights of future generations, when it comes to parks, the rights of future generations are more important than the immediate desires of the present. Frederick Law Olmstead said that in 1865 regarding Yosemite, and that’s never more true than it is today,” the superintendent adds.
“And that’s the challenge, and we want parks to be relevant to people’s lives in this and future generations so they have to have the ability to experience them. ... Finding that balance -- and it’s not necessarily a perfect balance -- resource protection is to be predominant so that they’ll be available for future generations. That should be the basis that we make decisions.”
Comments
My dogs wouldn't stay by my side. They're springers, and they love the water;-)
Sorry but you would have to keep them leashed. Even if you were the only ones on the beach. Hey, I've never mentioned this anywhere but, maybe this has a little to do with why I feel the way I do. Early spring my wife and I were coming off ramp 4. It had been raining and a lot of water standing. We saw a seagull laying just off the side of the road (Hwy 12) and it was flopping its head side to side. We stopped and got out and picked it up. Took it over to the truck and examined it with our limited knowledge. Didn't appear to be injured in any way. Did look old. We were directly across the road from the OI Fishing Center. There was no activity going on anywhere. So we put it in a box and carried it over and asked the lady at the center if she knew a vet or anyone we could take it to. It was weekend and after several calls we ultimately arranged to hook up with someone who would take care of it. Unfortunately by the time we met with the gentleman a ways down the road, the seagull had died. Only thing we hope is maybe we made it more comfortable than it was laying in the water on the side of the road. While we were examining it after picking it up, we noticed a SUV sitting in the drive going into the fishing center (about 100feet away). On the drive in, we noted that there was a couple in the vehicle and they were taking pictures of birds in the flooded grass between them and the highway, looking directly toward where we had been sitting. They had to see us picking up the gull and examining it. We passed within a foot of them as we drove in. We parked within clear view of them and the lady at the center came out and examined the gull with us on the tailgate of the truck. We passed them again as we left the center. I know I am making an assumption here but, Either they didn't care about a common old seagull, they didn't want to associate with a fisherman/woman, or maybe, just maybe, they were both so engrossed in taking some pictures that they were oblivious to everything else going on around them. We were the only thing happening. Draw your own conclusion.
Thanks, I've been wanting to tell this story for a while. You don't have to print it if you don't feel it proper.
Ron
That's a standing offer, although I would gladly defer you to the care of an islander like John, and take B shift, if available.
I'm glad to see you're a Dog lover, Kurt, welcome to the club. Retrievers are my passion, and we rarely travel without our Black Lab, Annabelle. There is wording within Alt F, (The NPS Preferred), that would BAN ALL PETS from March 15 to July 31, (the balance of the summer), EVEN IN FRONT OF THE VILLAGES!!!
Below is an excerpt from my oral statement, delivered live and in person to Supt. Murray at the Hampton, VA public comment meeting in late April, that should shed some light on the subject:
"The single most troubling aspect of the entire DEIS is the recommendations within the AMOY section in Chapter 2, Page 136, Table 13, Alt F that states “…Prohibition of pets within the seashore during breeding season including in front of the villages, and establishment of breeding and non-breeding SMA’s would benefit the AMOY”. This sentiment is repeated in reference to AMOY several more times throughout the DEIS, and a reference to PIPL on Page 66 of Chapter 2 reads “Pets should be leashed and under control of their owners at all times from March 15 to July 31 on beaches where PIPL are present or have traditionally nested. Pet’s should be prohibited on these beaches from April 1 to August 31 if, based on observations and experience, pet owners fail to keep the pets leashed and under control” Nowhere in the DEIS cited studies for AMOY is there a mandate for total pet exclusion, only restraint. Also, out of the 12 National Seashores nationwide, only two deny pet entry, and both are bound to do so by Florida law, not species protection mandates. Per 2009 NPS field summaries on violations, the vast majority of closure violations involving dogs involve humans as well, as there are very few documented cases of unleashed dogs entering closures by themselves."
(Please note that the page #'s listed above are PRINTED page, not .PDF page #)
I was honored to be part of the OBPA Coalition, Shorebird Subcomittee. I chose AMOY as my species of study because of the above statements, and the fact that I've interacted with them at various times. More on that at another time...
I read every single AMOY paper referenced in the DEIS, and many more that were referenced within the first subset. NOWHERE are there any calls for pet prohibition. No one can figure out exactly where this came from,
and even nore curiously, the SELC supported Alt D does not call for such, or even make any mention of pets other than 6' leashes/restraint, common to all/most parks.
I've often spoken of overreach in this matter, and here's the blatant evidence. What about the quality of life of year-round residents who happen to own dogs and/or own oceanfront property? What of the visitors who come to CHNSRA for the basic reason that they can bring their canine loved ones along? Our dog is an absolute member of our family, nothing less, and I cannot abide with such measures. Many commenters shared this opinion, and we hope to have this travesty stricken from the FEIS and the Final Ruling.
I hope I am not alone in the absolute rejection of the NPS' demonization of our extended non-human family members.
"Demonization of our extended non-human family members"???
C'mon, Dap, I love dogs and like to take them everywhere with me and clean up after them, but there are times when I feel like I'm in the minority in cleaning up after them. There's a dog park of sorts near my house, and they even have a station to dispense bags for collecting your dog's deposits, and you'd be amazed, just amazed, at the number of people who 1) don't use the bags, or 2) use the bags but leave them on the ground.
In light of the number of folks who like to walk barefoot on beaches, I don't think restrictions on dogs (or even cats!) are that outlandish.
Kurt, You have touched on one of the most important subjects involved. Pet restraint and clean up. This has been a tough one to date. Personally have had to ask people to leash their dogs and have occasionally cleaned up after some have left the beach. My wife probably moreso than I. But to assume this can not be overcome is not right. We will all agree that adopting more means of deterrant is necessary. More signage and stiff penalties and fines. A permitting system is already a given so there will not be anymore 'oh, I didn't know'. Got to go back to: Don't penalize all for the misdeeds of a few. That Like saying noone should be able to drive on the highway because a few are reckless. It may not be that simple to work out but, its not impossible. Another situation that some beleave better to just eliminate it as they see no need for pets on the beach to start with.
Ron
A ps: please. It is a given that it will take a lot of effort and ingenuity to work some of this out. But look at how long this has been going on. There are a lot of things that have continually occurred that most everyone has been against. Some have continually tried to correct situations, some didn't care. To institute extreme measures without giving the NPS and more importantly the PEOPLE themselves a chance to correct them and (police them) if you will, does not seem the correct way to go with an incoming new policy. It would make sense to be conservative initially, incorperating means to modify and ammend if the need arises. After all, conditions,situations and information are constantly changing. We are learning more about past and present assumptions and don't know at all what the future might show us. Keep in mind, history shows that most every law and regulation has a tendency to get more strengent as time goes on, particularly when certain special interest groups are involved. We know what ever the outcome at this point, there will be more to come. Its the agenda factor. Lets not give up everything they ask for up front. How many times is a 'right' given back once its been taken away. And be careful what precedents are established, That can be extremely dangerous.
Thanks once more,
Ron
The issues are much boarder and further reaching than most may think. The ESA requires no scientific evidence for listing (just best evidence available which can be anyone’s observations). Anyone with a little clout (aka money) can initiate actions that can, and has, put animals at the top of the chain at the expense of their livelihood or land. Of course what is listed depends on what animals "someone" wants to call out, the other animals that get in the way get exterminated in the name of preservation of wildlife. You all should see the “Kill Truck” here in CHNSRA on their daily catches and termination of what someone decided was NOT to be preserved (100s are put to death).
With the ESA and NEPA, the amount of lawsuits is absolutely amazing and the "industry" of the suits based on non-scientific evidence has employed a very large and wealthy crowd, all due to having to comply with the ESA which is loosely written and prime fodder for lawsuits. Governments (state, federal and local) have to hire full time legal staff just to address the constant barrage of ESA lawsuits, and the only ones getting rich are the lawyers. The Govt. (aka taxpayers) have to pay for these suits, so every one of these actions gets paid for by us. The consent decree is a classic example and has just left me speechless. Then the NPS bowing to the potential lawsuits with their over-zealous DEIS goes to show that it really has nothing to do with conservation and the American enjoyment of their parks, but instead, the NPS rolling over in favor of preserving the wills of the lawyers. To watch the acting director of the NPS sit in front of Congress and testify that the NPS agrees and should have the consent agree imposed on them is incredible. The Director agreeing that the NPS has not done enough and that the legal actions and the choice of one special biased judge is what they want, makes you wonder why the NPS doesn’t just hand the parks over to the judge, but I guess they did. And for what it worth (which does not seem to be a concern for the plaintiffs or the defendant), the residents (locals that no one cares about), the County (which no one has heard of), the state (which has limited representation in Congress) did not have ANY say in what was handed to the NPS to impose. It was the NPS against the Environmental lawyers with anyone else being considered interveners and quickly blown off and told that they have no say in this matter whatsoever since it is a federal park. The park just happens to be sitting in property that was given to them from the local community (duped).
As long as the ESA is around, people will get displaced and areas will be deemed off limits to humans in the name of some animals that someone says should be saved, even if it means massive killing of other animals. Just how many times have we been right about the way to protect or control a species and ended up worse off?
You can come on down and visit the Outer Banks, there are still a few miles of beach that you can step on without getting arrested, but don’t expect that to last. The DEIS will close permanently most of the favored recreational areas; pets will be banned from all park venues so they will have to be left at home. The island environment and your visitor experience as well as the local economy will change as we have already seen. Businesses are laying off employees and year round long term camp site rentals are packing up and leaving since the opportunities enjoying any of the surviving recreational activates on the island without a beach to even use, becomes useless.
The real endangered species here are the historic villages and the culture and tradition of the island.
Take this rant or leave it, but if you contribute to those environmental groups (as I had done in years past), realize that the money raised is used to sue yourself as well as take away your ability to use our own land recreationally.
Kurt,
I knew my last sentence would draw fire, but it's simply the way I and many other feel about this. This was a complete blindside, as nothing of the sort was ever mentioned through the course of Reg-Neg, nor was anything even remotely close to it requested by any of the stakeholder groups.
I've seen waste issues around public dog parks as you mention, but I can promise you that you will find nothing of the sort anywhere on this seashore. The off-leash violations are an issue, as I see several every day that I am there, but I also agree with Ron that we should not employ the "Kindergarten Mentality" and punish the whole class for the actions of a few clowns.
Part of the issue is the lack of NPS regulations knowledge prevalent in the pedestrian user group. At every ORV/Pedestrain area "interface", there are no signs present to alert the people staying at the village beach house to any of the regulations! None, zip, zero. Some rental agencies supply information, but none are required to.
CHNSRA already employs regulations concerning pets, being that they are either crated or leashed, and are under control at all times while within the park. They are also already banned within the SMA's as shown in my earlier pictures. An outright ban for the entirety of the high-summer/tourist season, for a bird that is not federally listed, in areas like in front of the villages where species nesting of any type is very rare, just does not make any sense at all to me.
Here's some more info on the matter from the local HI press:
http://islandfreepress.org/PivotBlog/pivot/entry.php?id=87
In trying to understand where this originated, many roundtable discussions have yielded this hypothesis:
Feral and/or domestic cats pose a serious predation issue to both shorebird and turtle young, to the level where they are managed through trapping and "relocation" by NC DOA and the NPS. It is my understanding that said predation occurs more frequently in the Buxton-to-Frisco area, which surrounds Cape Point and South Beach, the area of greatest contention and PIPL closures. (It's also the most densely populated part of the banks, as it is also the widest and most wooded landmass on the entire island chain, and perfect habitat for both humans and feral cat colonies).
It has been suggested that the NPS is primarily after cats in this, but taking dogs out of the mix collaterally would make management of the area just that much easier. Hence "Pets", so don't bring your hamster, either....
Our biggest collective fear is that of incrementalism, as Ron has stated before me. A small Reg. tweak here, and adjustment there, it never really stops. Many believe the regulations could end up mirroring those of the Virginia portion of Assateague Island:
"Pets are prohibited in the entire Virginia portion of Assateague Island, even in your car. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service manages nearly all of the land area on the Virginia portion of Assateague Island as a National Wildlife Refuge."
Operative phrases: "...Even in your car", and "...Managed.. as a National Wildlife Refuge", when it is actually a National Seashore. See where I'm going with this?
http://www.nps.gov/asis/faqs.htm
PINWR is the northernmost area of the Hatteras Island chain. If that type of regulation is put in place there, you would be in violation of federal law by simply transporting a pet onto the island, as you must pass through it to reach the villages to the south.
Some might tell me to tighten the tinfoil over this belief, but after what I've seen over the past two years, nothing surprises me any more, and I've seen much crazier stuff become a reality.