South Monomoy Bird Refuge Connects
An Island Wildlife Refuge is Now Connected to the Mainland – It’s Bad News for the Birds
Changing geography has turned an important Massachusetts island wildlife refuge into a peninsula. The new land bridge clears the way for predators to reach South Monomoy.
The stretch of water between South Monomoy Island and South Beach in Chatham, Massachusetts has been gradually filling with sand, making boating in the area more difficult. On Thanksgiving Day, 2006, however, a storm delivered enough sand to the narrowing gap to close it. It is now possible for people to walk to the former island, a national wildlife refuge managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
The refuge is the breeding ground for thousands of Common Terns, a small number of endangered Roseate Terns, and threatened Piping Plovers. More than 280 other species of birds are seen in the refuge, many of them migratory waterfowl. The US Fish and Wildlife Service already keeps an eye out for predators, but their job will be much more difficult now: the sand connection will provide a land bridge for coyotes, skunks, opossums, foxes, feral cats and other animals that prey on nesting birds.
It’s tempting to wonder whether fencing is an option. I suppose a coyote might just swim around, but would a skunk or a feral cat do that?
Content about feral cats and birds:
