[derf]

I found the following in a heated thread between a couple of "envrionmentalists" and pro ORV access persons, and after reading it I thought that this person hit the nail on the head from my perspective, he seemed to put into a well thought out reply exactly what I would like to say if I could clear my emotion. If you know or were the person that posted this reply please email me, I couldn't find any way to contact this person and apologize in adavance for copying the thread.

It's always painful to read comments like some of those above that advocate the loss of access to ORV users at Cape hatteras national Seashore Recreation Area. And yes, that is its proper name. The Dept. of Interior dropped the "recreation area" part, not Congress. What’s sad is that the extreme majority of persons that wish to ban access do
so with no real knowledge of CHNSRA, it's environment or the nature of beach use by those that enjoy the Seashore. Shorebird, your reference to "the cape" and incessant discussion of wetlands and development establishes you as someone totally unfamiliar with this area
and the issues at hand. I live here (Buxton, N.C.), I work here and I fish here. I do so by way of 4x4 vehicle and must as I suffer a 45% permanent partial disability negating any and all thoughts of walking any distance in the sand. So, if I may, a brief tutorial.


We live on an island that at Buxton is roughly thirty miles out to sea vs. the mainland. The Island goes from a few hundred feet to a couple miles wide and back to a thin strip as you travel from one end to another. We have but two options in terms of access to our homes.
One by ferry to Ocracoke, the other via Hwy. 12 to the north.
Hwy 12 passes through Pea Island before crossing the Bonner Bridge connecting us to Bodie Island and then by way of yet another bridge, the mainland. I mention Pea Island and the Bonner Bridge for several reasons. One being that Pea Island is a National Wildlife refuge that contains dune systems and wetlands. These were created not by nature, but by the CCC in the 1930's. Pea Island also happens to be the site of the largest migratory bird slaughter I know of. Recently, USFWS gassed thousands of Canadian Geese because they were overtaxing
the man made ecosystem and complaints about goose poop were being brought up by "McMansion" homeowners up in the developed areas of Duck, Corolla and Nags Head far to the north. The road I’ve been told that spoils Pea Island is our one real evacuation route and ironically preserves the wetlands and birds covered by the MBTA. Without road
clearings and work to preserve the dunes, the wetlands will be destroyed. Plovers don’t do well there either in spite of no ORV traffic. The same is true of the Bodie Island side of the bridge, but more on that later. Hatteras Island is a bit different in that a few villages scattered along about sixty miles of Rt. 12 dot the seashore. These villages are bounded landward by CHNSRA and are
extremely limited in development. As with Pea Island, most all of the wetlands and dune systems are man made. Have a look at Google earth you might learn something. We have the luxury of being surrounded by an extremely active environment that remains unpredictable
every day of the year. In terms of wildlife, we have the sea, the sound, and a thin strip of sand that hosts an amazing variety of birds, reptiles and mammals, crustaceans, fish, shell fish and some sea turtles too. And we care for them all. I’m sure that when most folks read about what’s going on here and see the term ORV (Off Road Vehicle) they include motocross bikes, ATV's, and dune jumping sand rails and
the like, but that’s not what happens here. All vehicles on the beach have to be licensed vehicles, driving on the dunes is prohibited and speed limits are in force as well; 25mph but most do much less because of the nature of the beach. This is not even remotely like driving on Daytona Beach. And unlike beaches to the north, no mechanical device is
needed to scour the beach of trash in the morning. We, the ORV users, didn't take a week to clean up the styrofoam from the ceiling fans, we got the vast majority of it up in one day. It was a day later that the first volunteer environmentalists showed up to help out. Less than 20. Because less than 100 ORV's occupants had already done the work.
I was there and took bags of that stuff off the beach. It was NPS that asked the tackle shops for help and brought bags and they got it. But then, that's what we normally do. We sit at the point where the Labrador current and Gulf Stream collide therefore we get a lot of stuff washed up on our beaches from elsewhere, so we clean it up, by hand,
on our time, and at our expense.

As for the birds, what do I say? We're on the EXTREME northern end of the Plover wintering grounds and the EXTREME end of the southern end of their breeding grounds. Plovers breed in areas of frequent overwash. Please come to this Island in a storm and show me where that isn't. Yes isn't. Frequent overwash means chick mortality. That has nothing to do
with ORV use. In fact it's the native Ghost Crab that is responsible for the majority of chick mortality regardless of bird species. ORV use has gone down over the years, bird enclosures have been established earlier, have been larger and have been in existence for a greater period of time and yet bird numbers don’t expand. The Black Skimmers and Least Terns that DOW, SELC, N.C. Audubon are complaing about not being in the park nested last year on a newly created dredge spoil island near Hatteras Village within a couple hundred yards of the Park boundary, But since those birds didn’t follow the rules and nest within the Park, they don’t count. Neither does the largest tern colony on the east coast
because it's on top of a certain store at a shopping center well outside of the bounds of the Park. Last time I checked, when wild animals breed where we tell them to, because we wont count their numbers if they don’t, it was called a zoo. The fact is that it’s the ORV users that care for this National Recreation area. Birds have wings and will nest where THEY want. Larger closures for longer periods has resulted in increased vegetation thereby limiting breeding grounds not by ORV but by the sea. It was ORV users that begged for the moving of turtle nests that were in "The Narrows", a section of beach regularly overwashed. The nests weren’t moved and the turtles drowned. Two of them(nests). They weren’t in our way, just in a place we knew they wouldn't survive. I challenge anyone to prove that on any "given day of year" you can find 2000 vehicles on the limited amount of beach we have left open to access. I was on the Point today and within the nine or so miles I could see less than twenty vehicles on the beach. Most of
what is Plover breeding area was still under water and the entire beach still bore remnants of the almost complete inundation that occurred over the weekend. The attempt to close human access to these beaches is a travesty and an insult to those of us that do so much to care for this amazing place. Our economies will be destroyed all the while predator populations will soar, vegetation will increase, bird populations and suitable nesting areas will decrease. I could go on but it's late and I have to go to work to a job, a living that some would
seek to eliminate here. Because of my handicap, it’s about the one thing I can do. I can barely do that. But Saturday morning, I will venture out on the beach once again to be in a beautiful environment where I have no power to change a thing. I will see Willets, Gulls, Ospreys, Terns, Gannets, Pelicans, Sanderlings, Cormorants, Oystercatchers and cetera. I will be at peace. And I will think of all the children that you would wish to deny this. No, you don’t have a clue, you don’t understand and paint us with a broad brush that’s
entirely based on perception tainted by false data and data that has been excluded. Take the time to know us before you condem us. We have just as much right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness as do you.

this really puts things in perspective