Charlestown Police Department posts new signs on the Sand Trail to remind drivers of vehicle restrictions
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Dune plants are key to the health and stability of beaches. They gather sand, shelter birds, and withstand wind and waves. But they are very sensitive to a vehicle driving over them. All motor vehicles can kill native beach plants with a single pass, and even the wide flotation tires of quad bikes crush and destroy plants.
The sparrows are “living on the edge,” in more ways than one, Grace McCullough, a master’s student at the University of New Hampshire who studies the birds, said.
"Travel by off-road vehicles on beaches and dunes has a range of well-known environmental impacts: damage to dune vegetation, harm to nesting birds and turtles, and reductions in abundance and diversity of invertebrates."
"Too much driving on the beach can contribute to habitat degradation as well, says Comins. “It tends to really greatly contribute to beach erosion and certainly to the detriment of dune vegetation, which is important for stabilizing these beaches,” he says."
Beach traffic can substantially modify the physical environment on sandy beaches. Vehicle impacts on beaches were quantified on North Stradbroke Island, a barrier island on the east coast of Australia where large volumes of recreational off-road vehicle (ORV) traffic are concentrated on two beaches (Flinders Beach and Main Beach).
► Driving on the beachf ace affects the exchange of sediment between beach and dune. ► Driving compacts seaweed wrack and limits seaward development of dune vegetation. ► Does not cause a net seaward loss of sediment but alters beach-dune morphology. ► Lower crest and base elevation makes dunes more susceptible to storm surge.
"When off-road vehicles drive on beaches, they can reduce the number of creatures living on the beach by as much as 50 percent, according to a recently completed three-year study by a University of Rhode Island graduate student."
KINGSTON, R.I. (May 20, 2004) -- When off-road vehicles drive on beaches, they can reduce the number of creatures living on the beach by as much as 50 percent, according to a recently completed three-year study by a University of Rhode Island graduate student.
"The effect of traffic on the beaches is significant," said Jacqueline Steinback of East Falmouth, Mass., who studied the creatures living in and around the wrack -- the vegetation that accumulates at the high tide line -- on the beaches of the Cape Cod National Seashore.
