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Seashore
Map With Numbered Ramps Click Here
NPS/Google
Earth map of resource closures Click Here
Frequently
Asked Questions: Beach Access Click Here
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 Cape Hatteras National
Seashore Weekly Reports
Cape
Hatteras National Seashore Weekly Beach Access Report
The National Park Service issues a weekly beach access report during
the nesting season for shorebirds and turtles. The report is
a
narrative of what is open and what is closed and why on seashore
beaches. It notes areas closed to ORVs and ORVs and pedestrians.
The report can be used along with the NPS Google Earth maps that also
detail what’s open to vehicles and people on the
seashore.
You can see the Google Earth maps by clicking on the red bar at the top
of the Beach Access and Park Issues Page.
For the
weekly report, click here
For previous
reports, click here
Cape
Hatteras National Seashore Resource Management Summary
The National Park Service issues a weekly report on rexource management
on the seashore that details nesting and other activity by protected
shorebirds and sea turtles. It includes a chart on number of
piping plovers on the seashore and information about other sensitive
species, such as American oystercatchers. And it details
nests
and locations for birds and turtles. Also available is other
information on the seashore’s mammals, such as sea turtle
strandings.
For the weekly report, click here
For previous
reports, click here
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Two vandalism incidents result in buffer expansion and another ramp closure
Two
new vandalism incidents have resulted in expanded buffers at shorebird
protection areas in Cape Hatteras National Seashore – and the
closure of another ramp on Hatteras Island. ....Read
more
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NPS launches ‘beach watch’ Program
The
National Park Service has introduced a new volunteer “beach
watch” program for the 2009 summer season. ....Read
more
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 Seashore has volunteer opportunities for Hatteras teens
The National Park Service invites all Hatteras Island uprising seventh
through 12th graders to join in some exciting summer volunteer
experiences. ....Read
more
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Judge agrees to minor modifications of consent decree
In
a hearing today in U.S. District Court in Raleigh, federal Judge
Terrence W. Boyle signed off on three modifications to a consent
decree, which has dictated beach access and resource protection on the
Cape Hatteras National Seashore since April of last year. ....Read
more
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Seasonal beach closures will start May 15
The annual
seasonal closures of village beaches to off-road vehicle
(ORV) use within the Cape Hatteras National Seashore will go into
effect on Friday, May 15. ....Read
more
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Night driving restrictions on beaches begin May 1
Night
driving will be banned on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore from 10
p.m. until 6 a.m., beginning Friday, May 1. Enforcement of the
restriction will be at midnight on Thursday, April 30.
....Read
more
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Park Service will crack down on unleashed dogs on beaches
Park
Service officials announced in a recent press release that there will
be a focused effort this season to improve compliance with leash laws
on Cape Hatteras National Seashore to protect wildlife. ....Read
more
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 UPDATED….Park Service
releases final report on negotiated rulemaking committee
The National Park Service has released the final report of the
Negotiated Rulemaking Advisory Committee for Off-Road Vehicle
Management for Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The 1,654-page report
provides diverse stakeholder input on a full spectrum of ORV management
issues for the seashore. ....Read
more
Environmental Groups submit their response to negotiated rulemaking
The environmental caucus, which includes four members of the negotiated
rulemaking committee and one alternate, submitted its response to the
process and suggestions to Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials on
off-road vehicle rulemaking. ....Read
more
UPDATED….Beach Access groups submit their response to
negotiated rulemaking
The beach access caucus, which includes 16 members of the negotiated
rulemaking committee, submitted its response to the process and their
suggestions to Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials on off-road
vehicle rulemaking. ....Read
more
Committee
members weigh in on the successes and failures of negotiated rulemaking
The
negotiated rulemaking
process,
which was to assist the National Park Service in writing a long-term
off-road vehicle regulation for the Cape Hatteras National Seashore,
ended after 14 months of meetings on Thursday evening, Feb. 26.
....Read
more
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UPDATED…Two
more vandalism incidents result in expanded buffers.
Two new vandalism incidents have resulted in expanded buffers at
shorebird protection areas in Cape Hatteras National
Seashore.
The incidents, discovered over the weekend, were at Hatteras Inlet spit
and the South Beach in Frisco. ....Read
more
First resource closure violation reported on Ocracoke
On Monday morning, March 23, National Park Service staff discovered
vandalism of symbolic fencing marking a shorebird pre-nesting closure
at the South Point area on Ocracoke Island. Five
“Area
Closed” signs on 2-by-2 inch wooden posts were broken off at
the
sand line. As required by the court-ordered consent decree, a
deliberate act of vandalism to fencing results in a mandatory 50 meter
expansion of the closure area. Because of the narrow width of
the
beach at this location, the expanded buffer has closed some of the
beach at South Point to off-road vehicles.
....Read
more
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 UPDATE….Wellfleet,
Mass., rejects seashore request to ban kitesurfing in town waters
Kitesurfers scored a big
victory in
Wellfleet, Mass., on Tuesday, March 24, when the town’s Board
of
Selectmen unanimously rejected a nearly five-month ban on the sport in
the town’s bayside waters that the Cape Cod National Seashore
had
asked it to adopt. ....Read
more
Could Cape Cod’s kitesurfing ban make its way to Cape
Hatteras?
Cape Cod National Seashore
recently
enacted a ban on kitesurfing in the park’s bay waters, and
that
has some people worried about whether that could happen here.
Kitesurfing advocates say there is no science to back up the ban, and
there is good reason to think it won’t happen at Cape
Hatteras.
....Read
more
Cape Cod
National Seashore asks for kitesurfing ban
Locals in Wellfleet, Mass., asked the
selectmen
last week to "educate themselves" with the facts about kitesurfing
before they agree to a request from the Cape Cod National Seashore to
join with them in banning kitesurfing on its beaches to protect piping
plovers.
From The Provincetown Banner.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/wellfleet/town_info/government/x1658749155/
Kitesurfers-urge-Wellfleet-not-to-ban-sport
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Is Bodie Island spit owned by the Park Service – or not?
Who
owns Bodie Island spit? Most people would answer that the National Park
Service owns the spit of land on the north side of Oregon Inlet. But
that is not the answer according to Dare County records. ....Read
more
 Park
Service installs traffic counters at five ramps
On
Wednesday, March 11, National Park Service staff members began
installing new traffic counters at five ramps on the Cape Hatteras
National Seashore. The traffic counters are the result of
recommendations to track off-road vehicle usage within seashore.
....Read
more
Judge
Boyle gets an update on seashore management at low-key conference
The
parties to a consent decree that settled a lawsuit last year against
the National Park Service over its management of resources on the Cape
Hatteras National Seashore were summoned to a federal court in
Elizabeth City on Thursday, March 5. U.S. District Court Judge Terrence
Boyle scheduled a status conference in the court case that resulted in
a
consent decree that is regulating off-road vehicle use and management
of natural resources in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore until there
is a long-term ORV rule.
All
parties in the case said before the conference that they had not asked
for the court appearance and that they didn’t know what Boyle
wanted. Well, it was as simple as Boyle wanted to know how the past
summer had gone on the seashore – the nesting success of
birds
and turtles and the progress of negotiated rulemaking.
....Read
more
This
year’s beach access outlook: There will be beaches open, but
not all of them will be open all of the time
Many
regular visitors want to know if the beaches will be open to off-road
vehicles, which beaches will be open to ORVs, and exactly when they
will be open. The good news is that there will be beaches open to ORVs
this spring and summer. In fact, there will probably be quite
a
few miles of beach open. The not-so-good news is that they may not be
the beaches you want to go to. And you will not know ahead of time
which beaches are open and which are not, since it all depends on where
the birds go. ....Read
more
Negotiated
rulemaking ends with no consensus
The
29-member negotiated rulemaking committee, appointed to help the
National Park Service write a long-term rule for off-road vehicles on
the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, ended its work on Thursday, Feb.
26, without having reached a consensus on access to the beaches.
....Read
more
 Dare
County launches Web site to preserve beach access
An
informative and interactive Web site has been launched by the
grassroots campaign to preserve access to America’s
beaches. The Web site address is
http://www.PreserveBeachAccess.org . It features comprehensive coverage
about the issue of beach access in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
Recreational Area (CHNSRA). The campaign is supported by the
Dare
County Board of Commissioners in partnership with the Dare County
Tourism Board. ....Read
more
NPS issues 2008 reports on birds
and turtles and status of ORV rulemaking
Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s 2008 annual reports for
protected species and a report on the status of off-road vehicle
management plan and negotiated rulemaking have been released and are
available to the public on the park’s planning Web site under
the
Interim Protected Species Management Strategy.
....Read
more
Jones re-introduces bill to set
aside consent decree on ORV access
U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., re-introduced legislation in the House
of Representatives yesterday that would set aside a consent decree and
reinstate the National Park Service’s interim strategy to
govern
ORV use on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore until there is a
long-term rule.
....Read
more
Jimmy
Buffett likes driving the seashore beaches for surfing, fishing, and
solitude
You might be surprised who you could run
into driving the beaches of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
The
man who has been called the “world’s richest beach
bum,” Jimmy Buffett, spent four days on the Outer Banks this
fall
– from Nov. 10-13. ....Read
more
Beach
access group and Dare and Hyde counties plan to sue over piping plover
habitat designation
Cape
Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance (CHAPA) and Dare and Hyde
counties have notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they
intend to file yet another lawsuit over the issue of the designation of
critical habitat for the piping plover. In their Dec. 2 notice of their
intent to sue, the parties claim that the designation violates the
Endangered Species Act, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA),
and other federal environmental laws.
....Read
more
 Park
Service releases its management alternatives for ORV use on the seashore
The
National Park Service has released its management alternatives for
off-road vehicle use on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
Park
officials hope that the negotiated rulemaking committee will add one
more alternative. The Park Service’s management
alternatives would normally not be released to the public until next
fall when the Draft Environmental Impact Statement will be ready for
public review. However, the seashore superintendent said that he thinks
releasing the alternatives almost a year early will benefit the
negotiators.
Read
more....
 Beach-driving
advocates wary of new rule on critical habitat for wintering plovers
After seven years of court fights and compromise, more than 2,000 acres
of seashore along the Outer Banks were deemed critical wintering
habitat for piping plovers, a rare shorebird.
Beach drivers now wonder how the designation will affect them, and
groups that oppose it want federal regulators to reconsider the move.
Article by Catherine Kozak in The Virginian-Pilot.
http://hamptonroads.com/2008/10/outer-banks-beach-driving-advocates-wary-rule
FOR
MORE INFORMATION ON CRITICAL HABITAT:
Guest column: A critical look at designating critical habitat for
wintering piping plovers
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has given notice that it intends to
designate four popular areas of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore as
critical habitat for the wintering piping plover. Dr. Mike
Berry
writes that this designation has some significant implications for the
national park, the public, and the villages on the Outer
Banks. ....Read more
http://islandfreepress.org/2008Archives/06.02.2008-GuestColumnMikeBerryCriticalHabitat.html
 Background
information on establishment of the national seashore
Several
readers have asked The Island Free Press to publish information online
about the establishment of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and what
exactly was promised by the U.S. Congress in the 1937 enabling
legislation and later by Conrad Wirth, who was director of the National
Park Service when the seashore was established in 1953. The PDF file
below contains the enabling legislation, the 1940 legislation changing
the name from “national seashore” to
“national
seashore recreational area,” and the famous “Open
Letter to
the People of the Outer Banks,” by NPS director Wirth that
was
published in a 1952 issue of The Coastland Times. There are
also
other interesting bits of information.
All
of this information is from an exhibit in the litigation on beach
driving that was compiled by law firms representing the
defendant-intervenors – Dare and Hyde counties and the Cape
Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance.
Information
on the establishment of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore
What Island
Free Press readers say about beach access issues
Scores of Island Free Press readers have shared their views on the
ongoing issue of ORV access to our beaches. They are
sometimes
thoughtful and sometimes nostalgic but always interesting and
emotional. ....Read Letters
to the editor
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Click Here To View
Archived Beach Access Information
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