Can public access and wildlife coexist in restored habitats?

In addition to supporting wildlife, providing public access is one of the primary goals of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project. As a result, the Project plans to implement new recreational features, especially trails near wetland habitats. Little is known about trail effects on foraging shorebirds, but managers need this information to balance potentially competing recreation and wildlife goals. This talk presents research on the effects of non-motorized trails on foraging shorebirds in adjacent mudflat habitat and discusses the implications of these findings for incorporating public access in the larger restoration Project. We collected data over 24 months at three paired Trail and Control sites on weekdays and weekends to test whether trail use had a sustained effect on the number, species richness, and behavior of shorebirds in tidal mudflat habitat used for foraging. While human trail use differed significantly between each Control and Trail sites and between weekdays and weekends at each Trail site, bird numbers and species richness at Control versus Trail sites showed no consistent response to human activity. Bird use did not differ significantly between weekdays and weekends. Nor was the intensity of trail use negatively correlated with either bird numbers or species richness. A greater percentage of birds foraged at the Trail sites compared to the Control sites and on weekends versus weekdays in 18 of 24 comparisons. These findings, specific to foraging shorebirds, are helping guide development of public access and associated monitoring within the Project.