Standing only a few inches off the ground, a Western snowy plover scurries down a sand dune and across a flat stretch of beach searching for bugs to eat in a clump of kelp that’s washed ashore. Weighing about 2 ounces, its tiny frame carries just enough weight to leave faint impressions of its quick feet moving across the wet sand.
Sporting sandy gray and white feathers with a black spot on its forehead, the bird’s natural camouflage helps it blend in with its habitat along the Pacific Coast and hide from its numerous predators. Historically, humans have posed the bird’s greatest threat.
Plovers inhabit beaches from Washington to Mexico, with most living in California, and a significant population residing on the Central Coast. Plovers used to thrive throughout the state, but commercial and residential development along the shoreline has limited the space available for it to live and breed, Audubon California Director of Bird Conservation Andrea Jones said. This loss of habitat, as well as other factors, culminated with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) listing the Western snowy plover as threatened in 1993.
Since then, state and federal agencies have implemented measures that have helped the population recover, including installing temporary fences on areas of beach where plovers nest during their breeding season from March through September. Jones said this fencing usually blocks off areas near sand dunes, like at Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve, and leaves space for people to walk along the beach near the ocean.
“We’re not trying to stop people from going to the beaches, we’re just trying to figure out ways that plovers and people can coexist on beaches, which is entirely possible,” Jones said.
The situation is different at Surf Beach, 10 miles west of Lompoc. White PVC pipes tied together with thick yellow twine stretches from the beginning of the sand dunes down to the ocean. Signs hang off the fence, directing beachgoers not to proceed forward. This reduces an otherwise expansive area of beach down to a half-mile stretch of land for public access.
Surf Beach is located within Vandenberg Air Force Base, which, along with the FWS, implements a violation policy at the beach that occasionally leads to it fully closing. If people are caught crossing into the fenced-off area more than 50 times during one breeding season, the entire beach is closed until the end of September. Although this has only happened six times since 2000, each closure has occurred within the last seven years.
These restrictions have helped recover and maintain the plover population at Surf Beach, but they have also spurred the city of Lompoc and some of its residents to raise concerns about the lack of public access at the city’s nearest beach.
Earlier this year, Vandenberg submitted a beach management plan to the California Coastal Commission outlining the continuation of these beach restrictions through 2023. The commission was set to vote on the plan at a meeting in May but delayed its decision once Lompoc Mayor Jenelle Osborne arrived at the meeting with a letter from the city outlining how the current plan negatively affects the city and its residents. Commission staff and Vandenberg officials decided to postpone the vote until December.
Until then, commission staffers plan to work with Lompoc, Vandenberg, and the FWS to try and identify ways to improve public access at Surf Beach, while still protecting the plovers, said Larry Simon, federal consistency coordinator with the commission’s Energy, Ocean Resources, and Federal Consistency Division.
“Maybe there’s a way to improve public access … I don’t know what the answer to that is right now, but we’re going to give it a shot,” Simon said.
Protecting the birds
Starting from the center of Lompoc, at the intersection of Highway 1 and Ocean Avenue, Surf Beach is about a 15-minute drive west on Ocean. Public access ends at a fence marking a private section of the Air Force base. A small paved lot to the right serves as the parking area for Surf Beach and an Amtrak train station.
After crossing over the railroad tracks, a yellow sign warns visitors about the multiple fatal shark attacks that have occurred at the beach. A large white sign outlines the penalties associated with entering the fenced-off area during plover breeding season.
“Violators will be subject to fines up to $5,000. The destruction or harm to snowy plovers, their eggs, or [their] young may result in civil penalties up to $25,000 or criminal penalties up to $50,000 and/or one year in prison,” the sign reads in capital red letters.
Officials at Vandenberg began monitoring and reporting the status plovers at beaches throughout the base to the FWS in 1993, when the bird was first listed as threatened. Two years later, officials began restricting access to some areas of the beaches during plover breeding season. In 2000, Vandenberg started fully closing parts of its beaches and implementing the existing violation system in conjunction with the FWS, Vandenberg officials said in an emailed response to questions from the Sun.
“The violation policy was implemented because of human activity inside the plover breeding areas causing an increase in nest abandonment and failure,” said Darryl York, Chief of Conservation with the 30th Civil Engineer Squadron at Vandenberg.
The number of plovers successfully hatching from eggs has increased at a higher rate on beaches where restrictions are in place than on open beaches without restrictions, York said. In 2000, zero of the three nests on open-beach areas hatched, while 30 percent of the nests on closed-beach areas hatched. In 2018, 39 percent of the nests on open-beach areas hatched, compared to the 47 percent that hatched on closed-beach areas, York said.
However, there have been hatching inconsistencies over the years, which officials primarily attribute to predators disrupting plover nests, according to a 2016 Western snowy plover monitoring report. On the north section of Surf Beach, which includes the area open to the public as well as parts of the closed sections, coyotes destroyed 24 percent of all plover nests in 2016.
The number of adult plovers identified at all Vandenberg’s beaches has also fluctuated over the last two decades. Officials identified only 78 adult birds during the breeding season in 1999 before identifying 420 birds just four years later.
These two years may be outliers, but fluctuations in plover population are common and can be caused by a variety of things, such as extreme weather.
“El Niño events create strong winter storms, which cause beach erosion and a reduction in nesting habitat,” York said in an email. “This reduction in nesting habitat in 2016 was most obvious on [Vandenberg]’s southern beaches where nesting habitat is already limited by a narrow beach and dune area.”
Overall, while the population is variable, it has remained relatively stable since 2007. According to the 2016 monitoring report, officials identified an average of 245 adult plovers at Vandenberg between 2000 and 2016.
In recent years, officials have recorded more adult plovers at Vandenberg than anywhere else on the Pacific Coast. In 2018, more than 200 of the 2,375 birds identified along the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California were found on one of Vandenberg’s beaches. Of the 220 plovers identified at Vandenberg in 2018, 147 were recorded at Surf and Wall beaches.
The number of plovers in the three states in 2018 is the highest total recorded since the birds were listed as threatened—just 10 years ago, only 1,541 plovers were identified. However, the population hasn’t yet reached the level necessary to lose its threatened status.
In 2007, the FWS released a Western snowy plover recovery plan that states the FWS will only consider removing the plovers’ threatened designation after the population reaches 3,000 and remains at that level for 10 years in a row.
Regardless of whether or not the population ever reaches that point, Jones with Audubon California said agencies must continue the practices that have helped aid the plovers’ recovery so far.
“I don’t know if it will ever really reach that, and even if it does, that doesn’t mean we would stop managing them because if you suddenly took away all of the protections that are in place, the population is just going to plummet again,” Jones said.
City concerns
Lompoc City Councilmember Jim Mosby said he remembers going fishing at Surf Beach with his father and grandfather. Now, that’s one of numerous activities, including kite flying and biking, not allowed at the beach.
“The sad part about it is, we have one generation of residents of Lompoc who’ve missed out on summer activities,” Mosby said.
At a City Council meeting in May, Mosby mentioned the California Coastal Commission would soon vote on Vandenberg’s beach management plan. Following the council’s discussion, City Manager Jim Throop wrote a letter on behalf of the city outlining its concerns with the plan. Mayor Osborne subsequently delivered the letter to the commission on the day of the meeting, prior to the vote.
In the letter, the city states that limited beach access and potential full-beach closures cause local hotels, restaurants, gas stations, retail shops, and vintners to miss out on potential revenue that could be generated by visitors stopping at the businesses while traveling to Surf Beach.
“That loss of revenue to private businesses also negatively [affects] the city’s already financially challenged general fund, due to the loss of sales and hotel tax revenue,” the letter states.
It’s not just city officials who think Lompoc businesses could benefit from improved beach access. Lompoc Valley Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau President Amber Wilson said she believes a fully opened beach could draw more visitors to Lompoc and improve the city’s tourism industry.
But aside from the economics, she said residents living in Lompoc would also benefit from improved beach access. When Surf Beach is closed, the nearest public beaches to Lompoc are Jalama and Gaviota, which are both about 20 miles away.
“During the summertime, when kids aren’t at school, having a beach that we can access is definitely important and desirable,” Wilson said.
Plovers have not been recorded at Jalama or Gaviota over the past couple of years, but there is a consistent population of plovers that live at Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve, which is a Santa Barbara County-owned park.
Additionally, there is a growing population of plovers at Coal Oil Point Reserve in South County and smaller flocks at Ellwood Beach in Goleta, Santa Rosa Island, and at two private beach locations, according to data from the FWS.
In its letter, the city of Lompoc questioned why other beaches with plover populations don’t have the same restrictions in place as Surf Beach. According to the letter, no other beach has a violation policy in place that could result in the beach fully closing. Additionally, at other beaches, like the county’s dunes preserve, only the dunes are fenced off, leaving space for visitors to walk up and down the entire stretch of beach.
Although it doesn’t keep track of violations, County Parks Superintendent Jeff Lindgren said the county hasn’t had a lot of problems with people interfering with plover breeding areas at the dunes preserve.
He said the difference in access points at the preserve and Surf Beach could explain some of this. At the preserve, visitors can walk down to the water while avoiding the plovers’ nesting area in the dunes; whereas visitors have to walk directly through the dunes to access the ocean at Surf Beach. Additionally, the dunes and the beach are both larger at the preserve than at Surf Beach, which means available nesting habitat is more limited at the latter.
There are also far fewer plovers recorded annually at the preserve than at Surf Beach. In 2016, officials recorded 27 plovers at the preserve, while recording 86 plovers at the north part of Surf Beach, according to data from the FWS.
Regardless of the differences, Lompoc officials are pushing for changes. Osborne said she would like to see a more equitable solution that mirrors the setup at other beaches in the county where the nesting areas are blocked off, but the full beach is always accessible.
Lompoc residents are voicing their support as well, Mosby said. In May, at about the same time the city submitted its letter to the commission, Mosby posted a petition online requesting support to fully reopen Surf Beach.
Mosby said he would like to see Surf Beach returned to the way it was prior to the plovers being listed as threatened, where there were no partial or full closures. Instead, he would like to see additional signage around nesting areas to educate the public about the birds and why it’s important to not disturb them or their eggs.
“I think we can go back to how it was before,” Mosby said. “What better way to protect an ecosystem than to educate people about the ecosystem?”
Reviewing the process
Since Mosby began circulating his petition, which includes the email address to Larry Simon with the California Coastal Commission, Simon has received between 40 to 50 emails from Lompoc residents. In the vast majority of these letters, residents are asking for improved access to Surf Beach, Simon said.
“Most of these letters and emails acknowledge that the plover is there and they would like to see the plover protected, but is there a way to have both?” Simon said.
The commission doesn’t have jurisdiction over federal agencies so they aren’t required to obtain coastal permits. However, the agencies are supposed to submit a federal consistency determination to the commission outlining plans that affect coastal resources. In the case of Vandenberg, coastal resources include both the plovers as well as public access to the beach.
After receiving a consistency determination, commission staff reviews the proposal and makes a recommendation to the commission. The determination is then placed as an item on a commission meeting agenda, where commissioners either vote to agree or disagree with the determination. But, regardless of its decision, the commission doesn’t have the jurisdiction to stop federal agencies from implementing proposed plans.
“The commission doesn’t hold any kind of veto power over federal agency activities, but there’s a real incentive for federal agencies and the commission to negotiate away any kind of disagreements because nobody likes to go to court to do that kind of thing,” Simon said.
Vandenberg last submitted a consistency determination for its beach management plan to the commission in 2004, even though these plans usually only last for five years, Simon said. However, there have been no changes to the plan since 2004 that have required its resubmittal to the commission, York said.
Vandenberg submitted a consistency determination for its 2019-23 beach management plan in May because there was a slight change in activities, unrelated to the plovers, that required an update, York said.
Prior to the vote being delayed, commission staff recommended the commission concur with Vandenberg’s consistency determination for its 2019-23 beach management plan. Simon said staff made this recommendation because the plan is essentially the same as the one Vandenberg submitted in 2004.
However, the letter Osborne delivered to the commission on the day of the meeting brought up issues that commission staff was not prepared to answer, which led to the postponement of the vote. Initially the vote was delayed until July, but Simon said commission staff decided to push the vote back to December to further examine the plan and the city’s concerns.
“There are no commissioners currently sitting who were on the commission back in 2004 [when Vandenberg’s plan was first approved],” Simon said. “So, this would be a completely new issue and it was going to take some time to really do a more in-depth analysis of the management plan.”
Now that the vote has been delayed, the next step is to work with the various stakeholders, including Vandenberg, Lompoc, and the FWS to try to identify potential compromises and solutions, Simon said.
All of these agencies are planning to meet at Surf Beach in late July to discuss issues the city brought up, including why the restrictions at Surf Beach are more stringent than other nearby beaches with plover populations. Simon said this is one question the commission doesn’t have an answer to, but intends to figure out.
“One of the reasons that we’re having this meeting at the end of July is because we need to find the answer to [why restrictions are different at Surf Beach],” Simon said. “Because that’s been raised by the city, it’s been raised by a host of members of the public who sent me scores of emails over the last month asking, ‘Why is surf beach closed to protect the plover but other beaches aren’t?’”
In an email to the Sun, Vandenberg officials said they understand the concerns raised by Lompoc and its residents and will work with the city and the other agencies throughout this process to try to find ways to improve public access, while still protecting the plovers.
What this solution looks like remains to be seen, but Osborne feels optimistic about a potential solution. Even though Lompoc isn’t a beach town, the city and its residents feel connected to Surf Beach, she said.
“I’m hoping they are hearing us and looking at it from our side … Lompoc is saying, ‘This has always been our beach and we want access to our beach,’” Osborne said.
Reach Staff Writer Zac Ezzone at zezzone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jul 4-11, 2019.