Parts of Sandy Point to be off-limits to protect birds

Stonington - Portions of Sandy Point, a popular nature preserve visited by many boaters each season, will be closed off this spring and for part of the summer to protect endangered nesting shorebirds such as American oystercatchers, sandpipers and plovers.

The closures are the result of a decision by the island's owner, the Avalonia Land Conservancy, to turn over management of the mile-long ribbon of sand in Little Narragansett Bay to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

For many years, the Stonington Community Center (COMO) has managed the barrier island for Avalonia and sold seasonal and daily passes to people who wish to use the beach that encircles it. On summer weekends, large numbers of boats anchor just off Sandy Point and people swim ashore to barbecue on the beach. People and dogs have sometimes damaged the fragile nests and scared off birds.

"It is a nature preserve but it's too big and popular for us to maintain with the resources that we have available for us," said Janice Parker, a member of Avalonia's board of directors, about the decision to let fish and federal wildlife officials oversee the island. "We also don't have the muscle to enforce the regulations out there."

That will change with Fish & Wildlife Service enforcement officers patrolling the island to ensure users are not getting too close to nesting areas or violating other rules.

Avalonia and the COMO, which has used staffers and more recently a fish and wildlife intern to monitor the island and educate users, have asked people to avoid the nesting birds by not walking above the high-tide line. That rule has been widely ignored.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has scheduled a public meeting for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Stonington Community Center to explain the memo of understanding it has signed with Avalonia and how it plans to manage the property as part of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge.

The service also will listen to comments from the public about the proposed management plan, which has not yet been completed. The federal official in charge of the change could not be reached to comment Wednesday about the extent of the closures.

Parker said Wednesday that Avalonia, the COMO and the Gildersleeve family, which donated the island to Avalonia in 1982, are pleased with the agreement because it allows Avalonia to more actively manage Sandy Point as a nature preserve, which is what it was intended to be.

Parker said people will still be able to use the island, but areas will be cordoned off to protect the birds. She said she did not know how much of the island will be closed.

While migrating shore birds use the 35-acre island in the spring and fall, the closures are targeted from early April to the end of July, when gulls, oystercatchers and sandpipers nest on the island. A particularly critical time for the nesting birds, according to Margarett Jones, director of the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center, is around Memorial Day, which is also the first weekend of the summer when many people visit the island.

In past years, Jones said, when the weather has been fair on Memorial Day weekend, there has been no nesting success for the birds.

The brochure for Sandy Point cautions users that the nests are often inconspicuous, shallow depressions on the ground that are sometimes on the beach just above the high-tide line, where people often put their grills and blankets.

Jones has been closely involved in monitoring the birds on the island for years. She called the new management plan an excellent idea that is long overdue.

"It's time that Sandy Point gets the protection it deserves," she said.

Jones said development along the shoreline has made nesting habitat increasingly scarce, increasing the need to protect places such as Sandy Point. A 2008 survey showed that of the 15 pairs of nesting American oystercatchers spotted in Connecticut, five were on Sandy Point.

Sandy Point is a unique site, Jones said, because it needs to balance its status as a nature preserve with the COMO's desire to make it available to its members and the public.

According to Jones, more education about the impact of people and dogs on the birds is necessary to help Sandy Point users better understand the issue.

Jones said that if Avalonia, the COMO and the Fish and Wildlife Service come up with a management plan that works and protects the species there now, it's possible that other species would return to the island to nest.

j.wojtas@theday.com