County reviewing beach-raking practices
By Lisa Neff
islander Reporter
Manatee County is testing a change in its beach-raking practices on Anna Maria Island to better protect the natural wrackline.
“It’s the wrack that truly brings a beach to life,” said Florida Fish and Wildlife biologist Blair Witherington.
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Birds on a clean shore at Coquina Beach. County officials are working with state and federal officials, as well as environmental groups, to reduce raking and leave more wrack on the shore for feeding birds.
islander Photo: Lisa Neff |
County officials have met with representatives from state and federal agencies, as well as talked with representatives from nonprofit organizations such as Anna Maria Island Turtle Watch and the Audubon Society about changing beach-raking practices for environmental benefits, said Charlie Hunsicker, the county natural resources director.
The focus, Hunsicker said, is on protecting the natural wrack, the buildup of vegetation that provides habitat for a variety of wildlife. The county already adheres to beach-raking restrictions to protect sea turtles that nest on Florida’s beaches.
Regular beachgoers know that sometimes the buildup on the shore stinks, but the county’s intent in raking the shore at Manatee Public and Coquina beaches is not to remove the natural wrack that contains bones, seaweed, coral, seeds, seagrasses, shells, sea beans and sponges, said Hunsicker.
The intent is to remove soiled diapers, plastic bags, straws, aluminum cans and other litter that either washes ashore or that people leave behind after a beach day.
“We’re also animals of the beach,” said Hunsicker. “And we leave behind bottles and cans and waste paper and used diapers and all manner of things.”
Raking serves safety and sanitary purposes, he said, but “our challenge is to find a balance.”
What’s the cost of raking the beaches?
That’s a rhetorical question Audubon of Florida put to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection a year ago.
“Audubon is very concerned about the impacts of beach ‘cleaning’ permitted by your bureau on imperiled shorebird and seabird species protected under state and federal law. Many of these species depend on Florida’s beaches for nesting, wintering or migratory stopover habitat and are rapidly declining as a result of human disturbance and habitat alteration, including beach ‘cleaning’ (raking),” Audubon wildlife policy coordinator Julie Wraithmell wrote the DEP Bureau of Beaches and Coastal Systems.
Audubon detailed the effects of raking on nesting imperiled birds: “Because beach-nesting birds do not build nests but lay their eggs in shallow scrapes right on the open beach, their only protection is camouflage. … Because these birds, their nests, eggs and chicks are so well camouflaged, it is very easy for pedestrians to overlook them and to even tread on eggs and nests. As you might imagine, these eggs and chicks are impossible to detect from the driver’s seat of heavy machinery used on our beaches for raking.”
Raking also impacts imperiled and migrant birds, according to Audubon. The state’s beaches are essential habitat for a hemisphere’s worth of migratory shorebirds, such as piping plovers, which spend winters on the coast, and red knots, which use the coast for rest stops.
“Many of these species depend on wrack as an important food source,” Wraithmell said. “Removing this resource diminishes the habitat value to these species and in some cases may render the habitat unusable to them. It is for this reason that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service frequently conditions its approval of beach renourishment projects on the prohibition of wrack removal and restricts turtle tilling to the zone above the wrackline.”
The Florida Master Naturalist Program of Coastal Systems of Florida also advocates leaving the wrack on the beaches.
“The more we study beach wrack, the more we learn how important this source is to coastal ecology,” reads a public awareness notice from FMNP.
The wrack, according to the FMNP, an extension service under the University of Florida, can help stabilize the shore in unpopulated areas. Seagrass provides habitat for small animals and, when it washes back to sea can give hatchling sea turtles a ride.
Biologists with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also have endorsed more natural beaches.
“While a natural beach may not look as manicured as a raked beach, the diversity and richness of a natural, functioning beach is infinitely more interesting than the sterile landscape of one that is groomed,” said FWC biologist Nancy Douglass.
Audubon, in its statement to the DEP, concluded that beach cleaning is “an elective, cosmetic activity that is resulting in irreparable damage to public trust resources” and DEP is “complicit in the take of protected species by sanctioning raking in the most sensitive of these areas.”
Hunsicker said the county also is concerned with the plight of imperiled species and the success of nesting on its beaches.
And, in the year since Audubon questioned government-permitted raking on Florida’s beaches, state, federal and local officials have begun work to study the impact of beach cleaning and initiated test programs to reduce already limited raking programs.
Raking takes place on less than 30 percent of the Island’s shore, primarily at Coquina and Manatee Public beaches, and the raker’s goal is to try to leave behind some vegetation and shells.
“It’s not a sweep of the beach,” Hunsicker said.
Still, he added, “We’re looking at reducing the frequency of beach raking and avoiding raking in some strategic areas.”
One area, said Hunsicker, is the “no swim” zone on south Coquina Beach near Longboat Pass. With no swimmers allowed, that’s an area where fewer people congregate.
“It’s where we can realize the benefits of reduced raking without necessarily reducing sunbathing,” Hunsicker said.
And the county is working with Audubon and AMITW to monitor bird populations on the beach.
“We need to do a better documentation of where the protected birds are,” Hunsicker said.
Another component of a reduced raking initiative will be a public education campaign to raise awareness “of the role that shoreline vegetation plays,” he added.
Yet another element might involve added efforts to non-mechanically remove litter from the beaches.
“We’ll embrace every volunteer,” Hunsicker said.
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