Residents: Blocked beach is for the birds
BY LIZ SHEEHAN
Correspondent

SEA BRIGHT - - Residents of the Island View townhouse complex on Ocean Avenue are asking the borough to help them gain access to their beach which is being blocked to protect piping plovers that are nesting there.

"Now the birds are taking over the beach," Peter Lederman, an Island View resident told Mayor Jo-Ann Kalaka-Adams and the Borough Council at the council meeting last week.

He said the beach that the complex residents own and pay taxes on is not available to them to protect the birds, and warned access to more of the beaches in the town could be coming.

"What is our problem now could be your problem," Lederman said.

The N.J. Department of Environmental Protection Web site calls the piping plover one of the state's "endangered beach nesting birds."

The DEP said that the birds winter from North Carolina to South America and make their nests all along the Atlantic Coast.

"New Jersey's beach nesting birds comprise a significant portion of the entire breeding population so their fate in our state has worldwide significance," the DEP site said.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Web site states, "The piping plover became a protected species under the Endangered Species Act on Jan. 10, 1986. Along the Atlantic Coast is designated as threatened, which means the population would continue to decline if not protected. The endangered Species Act provides penalties for taking, harassing or harming the piping plover and affords some protection to its habitat."

Areas where the plovers are nesting are roped off so the birds won't be disturbed until the newly hatched fledglings can fly.

Kalaka-Adams said she had spoken to a DEP representative about the situation and there had been some changes made to allow limited access to the beach.

"Our hands are pretty much tied," she said.

Kalaka-Adams suggested that Lederman speak to Borough Attorney Scott Arnette about the situation.

The residents of Ocean View get to the beach by a stairway over the sea wall opposite the complex, which has 75 units, according to Lederman.