On the CBBT issue:
The Executive Director and Chief of Security consider it a compromise to
offer us any access whatsoever to the facility. As some will remember, their
original plan was complete closure of the northern three islands to birders and
the end of the 40-year Birding Program (in similar vein, they have axed their
Biking/Hiking event in October this year). That closure would have happened,
had Virginia birders and many across the nation not faxed and emailed the CBBT
Commission back in the early spring. Those communications, and the common
courtesy of the CBBT Commission, got us a few seats at their table. After
more than three months of meetings and a closure of the northern three islands
on
1 June, they will reopen the facility with limited access in July.
I am surprised to read the angry replies to the Washington Post article,
which does not provide full or accurate details on the conditions of this new
plan. I would have thought that Virginia birders would have even keel enough
to
wait for the CBBT to announce its intentions directly, which they will
presumably do this month.
I was not at yesterday's meeting and don't know all the details. As I
understand it, though, there will be different dispensations - a $50 annual
permit
with ID card for researchers/scientists (I am not certain what this means), a
$50/hour fee for groups birding the northern three islands with a security
escort. For most birding groups, that works out to be $5-10/hour per person,
much less for field trips - obviously much more for people who prefer not to
bird socially. (Most of my own trips out there have been alone, because of my
work schedule and location.) I'm sure they may also perform background checks
for the annual permittees, as they do for their employees, etc. I doubt
they'll ask for background checks for groups - that would not be possible in
situations like the Birding Festival, which they do intend to accommodate in
the
future. But they have not announced the details yet.
The CBBT will review this new plan in a half-year or so, and I expect they
will accept more input from the public throughout the process. Angry
communication, of course, is likely to have the effect of closing the islands
completely, something that was very narrowly averted. Mitchell Byrd was
instrumental
in preserving ANY access at all to the northern three islands, though he has
not been so credited in the popular press. Without Dr. Byrd, it's fair to
say, the Post article would have lamented the complete closure of the
facility's
northern islands to birders. What the Post failed to point out is that no
birder, conservationist, or ornithologist working on the CBBT closure problem
had a single card to play, not a single bit of power to compell Commissioners
to
cooperate with us or even listen to us. When it seemed that our efforts to
preserve any scrap of privilege had hit a brick wall, Dr. Byrd managed to
bring about a renewed effort. What we should be reading on this listserv now
is
a hearty Thank You to him for having worked so assiduously and having spent so
much time on this matter.
At minimum, birders can continue to visit the three islands; at minimum,
birders have established some dialogue with the Commission and Security
Division,
who now, at least, know what our interests are in birding the CBBT. In the
future, now that the channels of communication are open, it is certainly in our
long-term common interest to stay in contact with Mr. Kellam and his
successor (there will be a new Executive Director later in the year) and to
remain
positive and pleasant in our interactions with bridge-tunnel police.
I think everyone who has ever birded the facility will agree: it is a
remarkable place, and we would like to have as much unfettered, inexpensive
access as
possible. It is very unlikely, now that the security fences are
operational, that the CBBT will return to the past way of doing business. The
people
currently in charge have made it crystal clear that they have no intention of
allowing it on their watch, in any case. With a change of the guard, we may
find that we regain some of our freedom of movement. This would, very
clearly,
be possible only if the pilot program to be announced goes smoothly and
without animosity.
And so if some people choose to boycott birding on the CBBT because of the
added expense of administering the Birding Program there, then that is their
prerogative. I have about $21 in the bank at the moment, so I probably won't
be
out there much in the near future. That's my tough luck, but I hope it's
temporary. Those people who do not plan to boycott the new Program can do us
all a favor by putting as positive a face as possible on birding. We have -
after all - absolutely no 'say' in the matter of how our privileges are granted
or revoked. We bird there at their discretion and by their leave; this is
not a public facility. (Anyone who has tried to get into a dialogue with
VDOT about access to various sites will appreciate how remarkable it is that we
were taken seriously and that we continue to have some sort of access at all.
Most bureaucratic structures do not deal well with special permittees,
especially not 800-1000 of them.) We were included in the dialogue not
because
they need our toll money or our affection: we were included out of a kind of
hospitality that still exists on the Eastern Shore. However, this hospitality
can easily erode into enmity, even with a few acts of hostility.
In my opinion, we owe it to birders, present and future, to weather this
hopefully brief era, in which many people, of good will and otherwise, are
alarmed
at the vulnerability of the nation's infrastructure and are working,
sometimes perhaps with too much vigilance and at too much cost to liberty, to
protect
it. Because, in this situation, we have been given two options - complete
exclusion from the northern three islands OR limited, expensive access - I
assume most birders, in thinking through these options carefully, would choose
the
latter. If not, then there is nothing lost in the current structure for
them.
I suggest that, prior to posting screeds, people learn the full and complete
details of the new program directly from the CBBT.
Ned Brinkley
Cape Charles, VA
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