Sea Bright withdraws changes to dog ordinance

BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

SEA BRIGHT - The borough's plan to change its dog ordinance has had its day.

In the absence of the pooches and most notably their owners, the Borough Council voted on May 2 to withdraw an introduced ordinance that would have amended an existing law that prohibits dogs, cats and any other animals from many of the town's beaches starting on April 1 and continuing through the last day of Labor Day weekend.

Nonetheless, the borough's less formal ban on taking pets onto unsupervised, private beaches in the north and south ends of town stands for now as New Jersey Division of Wildlife, Endangered and Nongame Species officials seek to protect a number of piping plovers that have nested in the area this spring.

Leashed pets are still allowed on the municipally owned beach, that is the stretch between the Chapel Beach Club and Donovan's Reef, between April 1 and the first day of Memorial Day weekend in accordance with a council resolution passed in March.

Only service animals such as guide dogs will be allowed on the private beaches during that time frame, said Councilman Thomas E. Scriven of the governing body's beach and environment committee.

In keeping with the existing ordinance, all pets except service animals will be prohibited from all borough beaches "from Sandy Hook to Monmouth Beach" as of the first day of Memorial Day weekend and until the last day of Labor Day weekend, Scriven said.

"[State fish and wildlife officials] have shown a remarkable ability to negotiate," Scriven said.

The council's decision not to revise and add further restrictions on the pets, particularly dogs, came five days after a Todd Pover, a biological assistant with the state's fish and wildlife division, address why and how the animals could disturb piping plovers - an endangered species - as they nest on the beaches.

Pover, who addressed the borough's dog owners and officials on April 27, agreed to a compromise in reply to residents who had appeared before the council to protest the new restrictions.

Officials brought in Pover to speak to the dog owners after they crowded council meetings in March and April to complain about the restrictions.

The council had put the dog-walking restrictions sought by state officials in effect to comply with an evolving statewide beach management plan now under construction by the state and federal governments.

That beach management plan seeks to prohibit the plovers, which Pover says have been spotted in the borough's North Beach section near the Sandy Hook unit of the Gateway Recreational Center, part of the National Park Service (NPS).

Compliance with the state's beach management plan is a condition of receiving funding for beach replenishment, Scriven pointed out.

In coming years, plover nesting patterns in North Beach could be reviewed by officials from the federal and state fish and wildlife services "on a yearly basis" to see if that area could be opened to dogs in April and May, Pover wrote in an e-mail dated May 2 to Scriven, Mayor Jo-Anne Kalaka-Adams and Councilwoman Maria Fernandes.

Addressing the question of opening up access to dogs south of the Driftwood Cabana Club in the South Beach section, Pover wrote that because piping plovers are nesting there, canines would not be permitted in that area.

"Also, the public beach in the 'center' of the town, where dogs will still be permitted, is close to this area anyhow, so I think the residents in the 'south' are being accommodated," Pover wrote in the e-mail.

In accordance with the existing law, those walking pets on the beaches must carry a visible means of cleaning up after the pets, Scriven and Fernandes stated at the meeting.

The anticipated beach management plan, which the state will eventually extend from Sandy Hook to Cape May, also endorsed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the state's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is designed to help protect endangered species such as the plovers and amaranth, Scriven has said.