It's No Picnic As Plovers Close Beach In Southampton Village

It’s no picnic at the “Picnic Area” beach in Southampton Village this week — unless you’re a piping plover.

The presence of multiple nests identified along the ocean off Meadow Lane prompted the Southampton Town Trustees to order the closure of the Picnic Area to 4x4 traffic effective Tuesday, May 31.

The restriction will be lifted on weekends and will only apply to weekdays for now. Trustee President Scott Horowitz said the temporary restriction could change if the birds move.

This is the fourth year in a row that the beach, the only ocean beach in the town where 4x4 vehicles are allowed to drive and park on the sand during the day in summertime, has been closed off to vehicles.

The drive-on section of the beach is located within 1,000 meters of the brood, according to Horowitz. For the month of June and July, until chicks have fledged, 4x4 access will be prohibited during the week and permitted at Jim Aery’s Way, aka Road G, and at Road F on Saturdays, Sundays and Monday, July 4, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. During the week, the gates to those entrances will be locked, except for emergency response.

Before the start of daily 4x4 access, the plover monitor will inspect the brood, according to Horowitz, and once the inspection is completed, a monitor will use a spotting scope at a station around 100 meters from the brood. If any broods move to within 200 meters of the 4x4 area, all driving will be prohibited.

Trustee staff will also check on the chicks every day during the week. Snow fencing will be erected to prevent vehicular activity near the brood.

Dogs will not be allowed on the beach, and a Southampton Village Police officer will be stationed during the operation at the fenced area. Areas are blocked off to prevent “take,” a term for harassing, harming, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing or trapping plovers. If “take” occurs, fines up to $25,000 could be imposed against the town or municipality where it has happened.

The Trustees created the plan in an effort to comply with federal protection guidelines while also acknowledging that the area provides recreational opportunities for over 200 residents.

“We’re doing the best we can to balance access and maintain the integrity of the program protecting these birds,” Horowitz said.

“My phone has been blowing up with people WTF-ing me,” Fran Adamczeski, the Southampton resident often called “the mayor of the Picnic Area,” said Tuesday. A lifelong resident of Southampton who’s been camping there since he was just 5 or 6 years old, he said it makes no sense to just close it on the weekends. There’s more traffic and activity there on weekends.

He recently confronted the Trustees’ environmental analyst, James Duryea, at a board work session to ask why plover monitors had erected symbolic fencing along the entire length of beach from Shinnecock to Coopers Beach.

“I complained that they roped off the entire beach way ahead of time,” he said.

Duryea declined to speak about the program he manages.

As of Tuesday, May 31, the campgrounds at Shinnecock East County Park were still open. In response to a request for comment, MaryKate Guilfoyle, the director of communications for Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, emailed: “Nothing has been closed as of yet at Shinnecock East, but there is a nest that is anticipated to lead to closures. Residents can monitor the Parks Department’s webpage for closures and updates.”

It wouldn’t be the first time the Outer Beach area endured a plover-prompted closure. Last June, Shinnecock East was closed to all access, with the exception of the parking lot, which remained open for fishing. A nesting pair forced the sudden closure and evacuation of dozens of campers who were told they had to leave the park immediately. State Troopers were stationed at the park entrance to prevent vehicles from entering. It stayed closed for weeks.

The piping plover, which has the scientific name Charadrius melodus, has a history of approaching extinction and bouncing back. At the turn of the 20th century, according to the State Department of Environmental Conservation, the sand-colored shorebird was almost wiped out by extensive hunting for meat and sport. The 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act provided protection and allowed the piping plover to recover, with the population peaking around 1940.

Development and increased recreational use brought constant human pressure, reducing habitat. Piping plovers were placed on the endangered list during the 1980s, but it wasn’t until the 1990s when their presence began to close beach accesses locally.

Just over 5 inches long and weighing in at approximately 1.5 to 2.5 ounces, the tiny birds can be found along the East Coast from Canada to the Carolinas, and in the Great Lakes region. They breed on Long Island from Queens to the Hamptons, along the ocean and in the eastern bays and in the harbors of northern Suffolk County.

Plovers are the first shorebird to arrive at nesting grounds and will lay an egg every other day during May and June until a clutch of four eggs is complete, the DEC online fact page informs.

Plover mothers are not the best at taking care of their eggs. They can sometimes build nests at the shoreline, and they’re washed away. They might also build them in the tracks left by 4x4s driving on the beach, only to have them squashed. And if the adults sitting on nests are scared, they’ll abandon the eggs to boil in the sun.

If the first nesting attempt is unsuccessful, they start the process all over again. Chicks fledge after 28 to 35 days.

Some adults return to the same nesting area annually and may retain the same mate as well, according to the DEC.