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
Hey Kurt, What is going to happen at Yellowstone. Used to do a little skiing out that way and would tie in a trip to the park, a little ice fishing on Lake Hebgen and always finish off with a meal & short one at Enos. Hope you've been there, everyone should experience that place at least once (could tell you some stories). The snowbile trip into Old Faithful was awesome, getting to associate with the Bison up close. What a beautiful place and the rangers and staff were great. The town of West Yellowstone was neat and the nicest people. I can see a similarity here as I write this. Only the weather is entirely different. I was up there last, just after a big forrest fire. That was something to see. Maybe your thoughts on how the two compare in your mind. I have not kept up with that area but, am not surprised if there is contraversy taking place there. All I do know is that snowmobilers were very considerate of the wildlife there. Remember passing an occassional Bison on the main road in, they always were in the middle for some reason, up close and personal. I got the feeling they liked getting a close look at us. Think I was a bit more nervous than he was. really neat experience.
Ron
Ron,
I fear the Yellowstone snowmobile issue is going to keep lawyers in business for quite a while. I believe the park is currently working on its fourth full-blown EIS in an effort to come up with an acceptable winter-use plan surrounding snowmobiles. They expect to have a draft in spring of 2011, with a new plan in place for 2011-2012.
Expect a lawsuit within days of that final plan.
I'm thinking of a piece that makes some comparisons. Stay tuned.
I would sure be interested in that as I'm sure others would too. I have a couple of photos you might find interesting From a few years back. Would like to send them if you could tell me how to do it.
Ron
Annony-mouse, I'm going to have to call you out on this one....
First of all, you complain about the photo of Bodie Island spit that Dapster posted. That photo showed up on many a web site dedicated to limiting access to the Seashore and, as Dap pointed out is debunked. No that's not what a crowded day on Cape Point looks like. We're not all ten feet tall driving twelve foot tall trucks.
The image in question was compressed horizontally to give the impression of overcrowding.
I will agree that parking is at the minimum along Rt 12 as it passes through the eight (not six) villages that are within the Seashore and more is needed however the dynamics of the Islands may well preclude much more than what is currently available.
Living here has shown me repeatedly that your comment about what a storm can do as opposed to a foot-path is somewhat true. However, each step you take up the side of a dune can displace upwards of 300 pounds of sand and its through these footpaths that a lot of the destruction we experience, starts.
Your complaint about the lack of pedestrian only access is not well founded in that there are many areas within the Seashore that are set aside as pedestrian only during the course of the year. The entirety of the beaches in front of Buxton are pedestrian only year round. Thirteen miles of uninterrupted pedestrian only access exist at Pea Island. All of the villages have seasonal pedestrian only access and are that way as I write.
You will find plenty of pedestrian only access but one thing you will never find on this Seashore is ORV only access.
You said:"Just because Cape Hatteras National Seashore was one time called Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Recreation Area (no one but the ORVers refers to it as that nowadays) that is not a mandate to bring all the recreational items you can legally use to the beach in an ORV".
I say: Actually, you have it backwards. When the Seashore was created in 1937, it was called Cape Hatteras National Seashore. In 1940, to further reinforce the purpose and intent of the creation of this area, the United States Congress passed the following law:
16USC459 CHNSRA (in part) “said area shall be, and is, established, dedicated, and set apart as a national seashore recreational area for the benefit and enjoyment of the people and shall be known as the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area..”
And no, that's not a mandate to carry all you can out on the sand with an ORV but even the National Park Service understood from the inception of the Seashore that taking ones belongings to the beach to enjoy fishing, sailing, swimming and "other recreational activities of a similar nature" in a vehicle, was not only desirable but a traditional form of access. That's why Conrad Wirth, former director of NPS discussed the building of ramps. Unfortunately, since 1979, 29% of those ramps have been closed.
One thing you need to understand about this access issue is that its not all about ORV use. Its about all access to the seashore. I'm handicapped and need a vehicle to get out to the sand and carry my tackle to fish. The proposed closures are going to keep pedestrians off the beach as well. Come down now, have a look, I'll show you miles of beach you cant legally set foot on this day, and for many days to come, not without ending up in federal court.
Wheat
Wheat
Dear Miffed,
At least we know what to call you now! Thanks for clearing that up for the group.
In large part, see what my good friend Wheat had to say, as he states it better than I ever could.
Otherwise, I’ll take you to task on some of your other key points that were directed specifically to me, such as:
“I’m miffed about where I’m being disingenuous, Dapster admits to purposely framing the picture for best effect and brags about fighting fire with fire while posting an old picture he says is from an environmental group misrepresenting Cape Point (not my pix dude).”
At least I admit it. The SELC Cartel would never have the guts to do so. My choice of vantage does not change the simple fact that there were 17 signs in that “viewshed” on that day in August, 2009. Personally, I find them terribly unsightly, and they do detract from my “visitor experience”. Didn’t say it WAS you pic either, that is unless you’re actually Sidney incognito.
Bragging? Poor choice of words on your part, as that was intended more as a warning. Plus, nothing you or anybody else says will stop me from doing what I do best: Debunking untrue statements with pictures of the reality that exists in CHNSRA today. If you can’t deal with that reality, I suggest you stick to your delusions and keep yourself north of Oregon Inlet.
“Don’t see what the big deal is because to me the picture looks exactly like Cape Point on a crowded day”
Of COURSE you don’t see the big deal in THEIR picture, (Which supports your stance), only in mine. How very hypocritical of you!
Here’s a mosaic of how said picture looks untampered, just for fun: (Supplied by another NPT poster in 2008)
Quite a difference, wouldn't you say? Not only did THEY pick a vantage for maximum impact, but they also altered it for evern MORE effect. SPIN is the SELC's second acronym! Also, considering this was likely taken on either Memorial Day or 4th of July, it is only representative of MAXIMUM high-season density, and not an every-weekend occurrence as the SELC spin team would have the masses believe it to be.
“Then one of Daps buddies piles on about bird closure when I am clearly referring to a very small resource closure for turtles, not birds, a closure that did not impact anyone’s access while it was in place. (Was it a 100 feet of shoreline for a week or so?)”
100 feet, for just a few days? Very Small?!?! Is that what you claim a turtle closure past the 50-day window to be? Pure fantasy on your part. Have you ever actually SEEN a full-beach turtle closure? It would appear not, so here ya go:
Complete with totally clueless and uneducated pedestrian violator from one of the villages! I see this all the time. ORV users know better than to enter one of these, the average house-dwelling tourist, not so much. By-the-by, these closures go into effect at day 50 and stay in place until the nest hatches, or until it is excavated to determine why the nest did not hatch. It’s not unheard of for a nest to sit 75+ days before an excavation takes place (That’s 2.5 MONTHS, in case you were wondering….)
“I thought it obvious I was speaking to a national audience. The local ORV groups do not care about what is important to me nor do they represent my feelings on the management of the National Seashore.”
What does “…speaking to a national audience” have to do with the price of eggs in China? (Answer: About as much as it does to this discussion). You’re also totally wrong in your opinion about that the pro-access groups, (let’s call them what they really are), do not have your best interests as a pedestrian in mind in this as well, because your user group is affected by these closures as well. See one last picture of an SMA below for proof.
Nor do you care about what is important to the ORV groups, so we have equity on that point, as well as the fact that we are both equally closed-minded on this subject.
Dapster, Sure hope you get on the beach with a pole and a cool one this weekend. We both could use it. Better yet, if you're going to be stopping in at the ncbba meet, I'll buy you one. Look me up. I'll be there.
Ron
Ron,
I plan to do all three this weekend! My wife has given the proper permissions to make the meeting, now we'll have to see if our son me gives his clearance to go as well. So many sandcastles, so little time....
Hope to see you and our other pro-ACCESS friends there!
dap
***************************************************************
Addendum, 3:47 PM EDT:
A friend and colleague pointed out something that everyone has missed in the Bodie Island Spit pictures we have been discussing, and that is how well behaved the park visitors are in relation to the pre-nesting closure that they surround.
If you look closely, you can just make out a line of signs on stakes arcing away between the moist center of the spit and the shoreline. See below picture, with green line roughly marking the closure boundary:
This is not high, dry sand, as the darker color illustrates, and there is not one tire track, pedestrian violator, or any evidence that the ORV user group pictured have done anything more than to abide by the closure on one of the busiest weekends of the summer season.
On the other hand, I witnessed a group of pedestrians attempt to walk to Cape Point from the south over Easter weekend, who apparently entered the beach on foot at either Ramp 49 or at the Frisco village junction. (I first encountered them in the vicinity of the ramp crossing, so I cannot say where they originated, only that they were sans vehicle).
Our family found a place to the north of the ramp, roughly between it and a Species Management Area, (SMA), to the north, which precludes all travel to Cape Point. Some time later I observed the group pass, and noted that they were the same folks from earlier.
We decided to drive northward up the beach to the edge of the SMA, in hopes of enticing our son into a nap, but when we got there, we observed this event unfolding:
Someonce had to have called the ranger in on this, as we had passed him going in the other direction on our way north.
From what I could make out, this group of 5 were ticketed for their trangressions, after learning about SMA's from the responding ranger. I still do not know if they were allowed to retrace their steps back through this closure to get back to their point of origin, but I would guess not. (In this groups defense, it was low tide, and the signage was quite a distance from the water's edge but ignorance is no excuse, right?)
I showed all that to make this point once again:
A large majority of the pedestrian closure violations occur when uneducated, beach house dwelling tourists decide to take a long walk on the beach, and their lack of education is a direct result of the NPS' lack of signage in these areas.
These are the only signs in place where the ped beaches meet the ORV beaches. Every ORV ramp on the seashore has a myriad of signs listing all the rules and reg's that apply to everyone, not just the orv user group.
Until the NPS decides to rectify this problem and educate ALL park visitors in the same way the ORV user groups will be required to once the Final Rule is in effect, (We'll have to pass a test), pedestrian closure violations will be counted, and in many cases used as fodder against the pro-access folks by certain large special interest groups. (And you know who you are...)
Let's make sure everyone on-island is aware of their duties while within this park.
Those were great examples dapster. I often saw the same thing on Assateague, people crawling under the ropes to go get a closer view of the baby plover. On Pony Swim day (God that was torture!) I started counting the number of times a person walked past the "Do not walk on dunes" sign and finally lost count just past 100...and that was in 30 minutes. Unfortunately it isn't one user group that disregards the closures, but a certain type of person (on foot or vehicle) that thinks that rule doesn't pertain to them. There was one guy who drove into a closed area and ended up getting a flat tire. The ranger cited him for the infraction and the very next day he was in there again! This time to go get the flat he left there. The second time he ended up squashing a nest of baby skimmers. These closures wouldn't be needed if only everyone learned to respect the rules, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. I always liken it to being back in kindergarden. One kid breaks the rules so the rest of us lose recess.