Vandals burn closure signs near Cape Point
Vandals broke into an area marked off to protect nesting shorebirds near Cape Point on Monday and burned sign posts and a barricade in two fires, the National Park Service reported.
The incident happened at Ramp 45, which had been closed May 21 to vehicle access to protect hatched piping plover chicks in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It was still open to pedestrians.
An investigation found that people threw vehicle barricades into nearby brush and walked into the area behind Cape Point Campground, the park service said in a statement Tuesday. Another barricade was missing from the inter-dunal road.
About 34 signs marking off the closed area were broken or pulled out. Two fires had been covered with sand but were still hot and smoldering with the remains of the sign posts and the vehicle barricade.
Under a federal court consent decree, vandalism results in more extensive closures unless the people responsible are found. Ramp 45 is now closed to all access.
It was the second act of vandalism in the seashore this season.
In April, someone deliberately tore through a protected area, resulting in a 50-meter expansion of a buffer zone for breeding American oystercatchers. Bird monitoring staff found tire tracks and footprints in the area, five wooden closure signs broken and a 4-by-4 post pulled out of the ground. Rope connecting posts into the tidal zone was missing.
If you have information, call the Dare Community Crime Line at 252-473-3111. Destruction of government property and entering a resource closure are federal criminal offenses, each subject up to a $5,000.00 fine and up to six months in prisonment.
For information on open or closed areas, go to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s Google Earth maps.
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Selena K says:
Oh dear Lord, I hope they catch these vandals and burn them at the stake. Just what we need…idiot yahoos ruining what’s left for the rest of us.
People, if you are ever on the beach and you see anyone doing something wrong, please turn them in as fast as you can! Call the NPS or the cops!
Kal Gancsos says:
I will say it again, we are being treated like children in a clasroom where someone is naughty and the teacher punishes the entire class. I believe that is also what the SS did in occupied Europe which only proved to P— the people off. It’s not up to the good citizens to patrol or investigate our beaches. If the Park Service would spend more on patroling and less on lawyers they whould not have to close down the beaches.
I’m getting to the point where I’m losing that warm fuzzy feeling toward anything that flies.
Graham Outten says:
While I admire this protest there are better ways to get this decree fixed. And vandalising property isnt one of them. As Kal said one person messes up it ruins it for the rest of it. DONT GO ON THE CLOSED BEACHES REGARDLESS OF THE IDIOTIC ACT IT MAKES IT WORSE!!