American Kitefliers Association

Just another reason not to vote for Omama and socialism !!!

Another insightful and well thought out comment.  No wonder these forums are empty.

If you are really concerned about the truth, you might want to check:

http://mediamatters.org/research/201012220029

As to the right-wing allegations that humans do not cause damage to the environment, just check what an ORV can do to a bird nest, or listen to the ORV enthusiasts who brag about eliminating environmental concerns by running over the remaining turtles, or threatening to eat the remaining Snowy Plovers.  Sure, they are in the vast minority of ORV owners, but it takes only one nut-job, excited by the some of extreme right-wing rhetoric, to do irreparable harm.

Just had an incident of vandalism to a well loved eagle perch and beach path marker at Long Beach, WA.  In this case, no harm to wildlife, only the quality of life for the residents. And a demonstration of the disregard too many beach visitors have.  The incident even has some calling for prohibiting traffic on the beach (also an extreme reaction.)

Don't we love to argue loudly from extreme positions with our ears closed!

After reading all of the attched reading material it screams of enviromental extremists gong to the outer edge of enviromental preservation.  IE: let's go for most extreme change and then settle for less.   (We all know the game)  It has nothing to do with who's in the big office.  We all know that each party has their extreme adgendas. Wwhen the goverment says I can't go fly a kite on the ocean beach, we just might as well move to Afganistan.

All of this isn't really about Democrat or Republican, developer or preservationist, Save the Earth or Pave the Earth. It's about Hoopes.

The document that these beach closures are based on is a 1993 master's thesis by E.M. Hoopes concerning the impacts of human recreation on piping plovers. But my initial research is showing that many of the land use managers who make the beach closure decisions haven't ever actually read the thesis. It's cited a lot, but nobody I've spoken to will admit to having seen an actual copy. Well, today I obtained a copy. I'm going to sit down and start reading. If the research supports closing beaches to protect endangered species, then I'll stand with the scientists and advocate for closing beaches. If the research doesn't support that position, then I'm going to start asking some very pointed questions to some people at state and federal natural resource agencies. Either way, you'll be able to read all about it in the autumn issue of KITING.

Wow, studying primary source material ... what a novel idea.

Well, Chuck, only because my new boss has adopted the pro-plover anti-kite stance, with no evidence to support her case. I'm really hoping to prove her wrong and rub her nose in it a litle.

Well, in any case I'll be interested in hearing your conclusions.

Some years ago we used to go kite buggying on the runways of the de-commissioned Alameda Naval Air Station not far from my home. One day we arrived to find the gates all locked and were told that we could no longer buggy there due to the snowy plovers. These are the same plovers who had lived along side fighter jets and military cargo planes for decades and our kites were scaring them? Right. 

Chuck, the difference there isn't the birds, it's the management. When it was a military base, the military has pretty much free rein to ignore most environmental laws (that's beginning to change). Then I'm guessing the base went through an interim period where the government was sorting out who'd be in charge of the land; that's when you got to buggy there. And then it got taken over by an agency that had to comply with the Endangered Species Act. In my profession we always say that there's no such thing as wildlife management... it's all people management.