Vol. 4, No. 2 Contents
Headline Back Issues
Spring 2000
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Gulf islands feeling pressure of their growing popularity (cont'd)Conservation or recreationAn island's natural features, accessibility, inhabitants, and ownership all factor into its management. If the island is managed for recreation, access will be a top priority. This is the case for the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area, a group of about 30 islands of interest for their cultural, historical, recreational, and natural features. According to George Price, Project Manager for the National Park Area, the park's planning committee is developing a comprehensive management plan that will expand public access to some of the islands while limiting access to others -including the remote outer islands, some of which are waterbird rookeries.
Elsewhere, conservation is top priority and recreation comes second, if at all. Within the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Petit Manan National Wildlife Refuge - comprising 38 coastal seabird nesting islands along 200 miles/322 kilometers of Maine's coastline - "The mission of our agency is protecting these lands for wildlife first and where it's appropriate and compatible we allow some public uses," said Refuge Manager Stan Skutek. Acadia National Park, which manages 14 islands, takes the same approach according to the park's Recreation Specialist Charlie Jacobi. He said the park's islands have not yet experienced the high volume of visitors that islands farther down the Maine coast have, but he acknowledged, "Sooner or later that stuff is going to come our way." Some islands have year-round human populations that coexist to some degree with wildlife on an ongoing basis. Brier Island, off the westernmost tip of Nova Scotia, has about 300 year round residents, but is also home to wildlife and to rare plants such as the dwarf birch and mountain avens, according to Samantha Hines-Clark, Land Securement Officer for Nature Conservancy of Canada. The Conservancy, which owns about a third of the island, plans to install signs to help inform residents and visitors about how to reduce their impact on conservation lands, she said. On the Isles of Shoals, a complex of nine islands off the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine, "Human usage of some of the islands does dictate or define the seabird usage to a certain extent," according to Diane DeLuca, Senior Biologist at the Audubon Society of New Hampshire (ASNH). "Star Island is used as a large conference center where 250-plus people are ferried in and out on a weekly basis through the breeding season. They have worked to minimize the seabird nesting up near the inhabited part of the island." On two of the other islands where ASNH is conducting a project to restore tern populations, ASNH caretakers greet the few human visitors who land there, using the opportunity to educate them about the birds. |
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