Science Committee Report On Wildlife Nesting

Science Committee Report

Al Adam, Vice President # 13459

A much-anticipated Science Committee Report has been prepared and presented by The American Ornithological Society Committee on Science Arbitration.

It is a comprehensive report evaluating the past and present management of beach-nesting wildlife species at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area. It contains 60 plus pages of data, charts and details about characteristics of various nesting birds and sea turtles, the things that likely influence their results and theories about other things that may influence their results.

Due to its size, we have posted some of it in this newsletter, but we have posted the entire report on our website for your review. Science Committee CAHA-report_final-AOS.pdf

I have only gotten into the first 17 pages of the report thus far and have developed a number of questions related to what I have seen to this point. Those questions, per Superintendent Hallac, may be presented to the authors, of which there are seven and two assistants. Some of my questions thus far are likely the results of my lack of familiarity with certain terms and others are as simple as wishing to know how some of the species’ target numbers may have been arrived upon. For instance, the target for nesting pairs at Cape Point is 30, while the historical high is 15. As a career commissioned employee, I was always aware of targets and the importance of keeping them realistic. We always wanted or needed more but kept in mind that goals should not be arbitrary….and I’m not saying these are, I just would like to understand their basis.

I would appreciate it if those of you who are interested who read the report and either solicit the authors for answers to any questions or send your questions to me and I will collect them and submit them in their entirety later this fall. I have little or no doubt that this information will come into play during any future reviews of access and resource protection concerns. One thing that is becoming apparent is that we will be trying to do more with less in many areas as erosion takes its toll on many areas of Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands.