By Connie Leinbach
South Point on Ocracoke is virtually closed to the public and is expected to remain so through next month.
That’s because of the more than 100 nests of birds in this area of the island. These are mostly Least and Common Terns, Black Skimmers, American Oystercatchers and Piping and Wilson’s Plovers.
Meaghan Johnson, Chief of Resource Management and Science for the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, explained the beach closures at the June 18 Ocracoke Civic & Business Association meeting.
The closed area on South Point, which starts where ramp 72 comes on to the beach, extends for 1.4 miles with only 0.24 miles currently available for people to park and enjoy the beach.
“It’s really exciting that we can provide that habitat, but I understand the frustration that the area is closed to ORVs,” she said.
Last year, the more than 100 nests on South Point yielded 17 fledglings, said Randal Mathews, Ocracoke’s county commissioner. Johnson said that low number was due to predation and overwash from storms that destroyed the nests.
Because the different species have different egg incubation and chick fledging periods and buffer zones, she didn’t expect South Point to be open much earlier than the end of July.
According to the Park Service’s website, of Ocracoke’s 10.3 miles for off-road vehicles (ORVs), only 63% is open, or a total of 6.52 miles, she said.
By contrast, of the 16 miles of the Hatteras ORV areas, 96.3% are open and all of the 2.6 miles on Bodie Island are open.
“Do the birds not go that far north?” asked Bob Chestnut, OCBA president. “Is it because of this pre-nesting? We get one nest and then you pre-nest the next year and you get one more nest and it just keeps creeping in until we don’t have any beach left to drive on?”
Johnson said the Park Service has rules to follow according to their complicated management plan.
Each year, Park Service staff sets up pre-nesting areas where birds have nested within the last five years. These are not closed off during the pre-nesting period, but if birds show up and nest there, these areas are then closed off.
Johnson said that’s partially the answer to all of the closures and said that between ramps 63 and 59 (at the north end of Ocracoke) there are multiple closures.
Apart from the South Point where most of the terns and skimmers nest, the other closed off areas on the island are due to nesting American Oystercatchers.
But in between those areas there are large gaps (about 1.5 miles) that folks can’t get to because there’s no additional ramp in that area.
“On Hatteras, we do have additional ramps in between areas where we can sometimes get people around some of those closures,” she said. “And it just depends on the shoreline and how much width we have to provide those ORV corridors. That area (the north end) is so skinny right now, we just can’t provide that in front of the closures, and I think that is skewing the numbers.”
Before the OCBA meeting, the total ORV routes available on Ocracoke was about 43%, but 1.5 miles more opened on June 18 after one nest near Ramp 63 failed.
She said that per their management plan, they are required to review the bird nest buffer areas, which have to be at the shortest duration and have the smallest size.
“So, we are continuing to look at those buffer sizes,” she said.
For example, buffer sizes for Least Tern nests must be 100 meters, she said.
UNC Wilmington is reviewing the buffer sizes to see if they can be reduced to allow pedestrian and ORV corridors that would not disturb the birds and cause a failed nesting.
“That study is in its final year of research and we’re hoping to see the results of that this fall,” she said, “and then we’ll be reassessing at least for the Least Terns what those buffer sizes are.”
Johnson said the staff begins daily beach monitoring for nesting activity from early March to early April.
“Where we have these pre-nesting areas on Ocracoke, this year, we do have current nesting or breeding activity occurring in in each of those closures,” she said.
Chestnut asked if the island continues to lose beach access at South Point each year could other areas be opened up?
“If we’re going to have to live with 60% of our availability during the summer when everybody’s here, we’re going to have to come up with another way to get this number up,” he said. “Could some of the area between Ramp 68 (some of which is a vehicle-free area) and the Lifeguard beach be opened up for ORVs? Could we swap some of South Point for that?”
Johnson said changing the designations would involve changing the rulemaking and “that is a long and lengthy process.”
Monitoring for sea turtle nests begins May 1 through Sept. 15, or two weeks after the last nest is laid, so whichever comes later, Johnson said.
“(In the Seashore), we have 76 sea turtle nests currently and 27 of those nests are in Ocracoke,” she said, and all are enclosed with 10-foot by 10-foot netting, around which people can drive or walk.
“None of those nests are impacting the shoreline access for ORVs or pedestrians at this time,” she said.
As for the amount of deep sand on the access ramps in which vehicles are getting stuck, Robin Snyder, deputy superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, said maintaining that ramp has been a problem since the Ocracoke heavy equipment operator, Mike Siebert, died in April 2023.
“We have been supplementing ramp work with staff from Buxton, Bodie and even Wright Brothers as we are trying to maintain those ramps,” she said, adding that she has asked her maintenance people to work on them prior to the July 4 holiday.
She also said there are two possible candidates for this job.
Snyder said beach driving permit fees go toward maintaining the ramps and access points.
The park service’s budget for maintaining all the ramps throughout the Seashore is about $500,000 and although she did not have the percentage of how much of that is spent maintaining Ocracoke ramps, she would look into it and get that figure to the OCBA.
Beach Access Table & Mileage Summary: http://go.nps.gov/beachaccess. The mileage summary is updated every Thursday during the nesting season.
Field summary: http://go.nps.gov/fieldsummary. The field summary is updated every Thursday during the nesting season.
