Ancient dunes covered with centuries-old lichens and shrubs are suffering from abuse in eastern Kings County, the Island Nature Trust warned Tuesday.

High dunes on the back of some of the finest beaches, featured internationally in magazines and web pages to entice tourists to come to the 'Gentle Island' are under assault from motorized vehicles says Jackie Waddell, trust executive director.

She said coastal species at risk such as the piping plover and Gulf of St. Lawrence aster are further threatened by ATVs, dirt bikes, and 4 by 4s.

She said the information is coming from people that work daily in some of the few wild places remaining on P.E.I.

"One of the finest views on the Island, over Black Pond in eastern Kings County, is virtually spoiled by the illegal activity of a few, who run through the old dunes there. They are tearing up one of the finest examples of grey dunes in the region" said Waddell.

"Our coastal areas are under assault, from the Kildare spit south of Tignish - where the beaches and dunes look more like a highway than the fragile habitat that they are - to the incredibly old dunes of Basin Head and Black Pond."

In one example, Waddell pointed to a case at Little Harbour Beach near Souris, where a dirt bike ran right through the obvious symbolic fencing protecting a piping plover nesting area. Plover guardian program volunteers found the signs protecting the birds had been ripped from their posts and the symbolic fencing pulled down.

"Since then, tracks of vehicles have been seen on beaches throughout eastern Kings Co. near plover areas and in the sensitive dunes behind" said Tracy MacDonald, plover program co-ordinator. "A narrow miss by an ATV inside a protected plover area at Bothwell came within four inches of destroying a nest of this endangered bird" added MacDonald.

Eastern Kings RCMP have promised plover guardian program staff to improve their patrols in the area and the P.E.I. Conservation Officer for the region has increased his visits to these areas.

From the Charlottetown Guardian July 17, 2007

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