Race Point Beach Closures

[Sweetwater]

I attended today's (March 3) meeting on the EA options for managing ORV access to Race Point area. It was nice to see all the fishermen there and I got a chance to introduce myself to Rich from Nelson's and say hello to ptmike. There were many good comments put forth, especially regarding the questionnable necessity of having to wait until the beach access is restricted to .5 miles before the preferred options are triggered. This issue was mentioned 4 or 5 times and I'm still not certain that we got a good answer from the Park Service.

In any case, two topics came up that I think could be related:

One was about the qualifications of the volunteers that assist the National Park Service in the monitoring of piping plovers. It seems that anyone can volunteer and that volunteerism is encouraged.

The other was a question I asked as to the primary cause of plovers failing to reproduce successfully. The answer is that the #1 reason is predation (and NOT human activity).

This got my old brain to thinking (which doesn't happen that often). Plovers may attempt to produce a brood up to three times per season, but only if a previous attempt is unsuccessful. This means that some birds (who failed earlier in the season) may still be attempting to raise a brood in late July or early August. However, if they are successful the 1st time, they will not nest again. Once that nest is abandoned (5 days or so), that area of the beach has no reason to remain closed. It seems to me that we could speed beach openings by helping to ensure that the plovers are successful on their first try and thus do not attempt to nest later in the season (of course we can't do anything about a blow-out from a Nor'easter). If it were possible to organize volunteers to assist in monitoring nesting sites and warding off predators for that critical 1st 3 weeks or so, focusing on critical access points such as the ranger station (north and south), the jeep trail near the lighthouse, and High Head, could we not assist in more limited closures and earlier re-openings?

Just food for thought.