The Bay Area's open spaces, trails and access to the Bay offer wonderful opportunities to observe and learn about wildlife, but for the wildlife itself, being "on display" is not such an ideal situation. Balancing public access with wildlife protection is part of the mission of several Bay Area agencies, including the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC), which recently revised its public access policies. The process revealed that there is a continuing and significant debate over how to evaluate and manage the impacts of human contact on wildlife populations.
The McAteer-Petris Act that created BCDC over 30 years ago charged the agency with protecting the Bay and its wildlife resources. When it began, BCDC concentrated on creating and expanding public access beyond the extremely limited areas available. Today, increased shoreline development has taken the place of industrial uses such as heavy industry or salt-ponds which buffered wildlife from regular human contact along the water's edge. Trails and public access areas are popular, and other water-oriented uses such as increased ferry transit are changing the balance as well. Ironically, protection of the Bay and its wildlife may now require limiting or changing public access, not expanding it.
The revised BCDC public access policy requires that "public access should be sited, designed and managed to prevent significant adverse effects on wildlife." It states that "unavoidable, significant adverse effects on Bay natural resources" may indicate that a project should provide in lieu access at a different location. A new policy section requires habitat restoration plans to consider public access at an early stage, to ensure that access will work well for the public without creating problems for wildlife.
The final section of the revised policy calls on the Commission to "support and encourage expansion of scientific information on the effects of public access on wildlife, and the potential of siting, design and management to avoid or minimize impacts". This section highlights the difficulties faced by the Commission in the recent revision process. Although scientists and environmental groups were clearly concerned about the interaction between the public and wildlife, there were no simple answers on how to resolve conflicts between the two. Some public access advocates feel that the Commission is backing away from a valuable access policy without sufficient proof that public access may be a significant problem for wildlife around the Bay.
As part of the public access policy revision process, BCDC initiated a Public Access and Wildlife Compatibility Project in partnership with the Association of Bay Area Governments' Bay Trail Project. The Bay Trail Project took the lead in doing field research to measure public access impacts on birds living around the Bay, while BCDC assembled information on the issue from other sources, and formed an advisory committee to help generate policy recommendations. The Policy Advisory Committee (PAC) was a broad-based group of 14 representatives from various professions, geographic areas and public interests. It served as a forum for public input and helped achieve a consensus among regional public agencies and non- profit organizations on policy recommendations. (Two PAC member viewpoints appear on page 5.)
As part of its task, the PAC reviewed the results of an informal but extensive survey of land managers responsible for facilities where both public access and wildlife protection are important.
The survey and the review of studies available in the scientific literature showed that in many cases, even human activity which was not intended to impact wildlife, such as photography or birdwatching, could be stressful and result in behavior changes for the birds or animals affected. In addition, impacts such as changes in plant life due to trampling or bringing in non-native species could affect habitat in negative ways. The results of these impacts may be subtle, such as replacement of one bird species which is easily stressed with another which is more aggressive, or may be more noticeable, such as a sudden drop in a bird population when predators take advantage of newly-created trail access. Some activities, such as jogging or exercising unleashed dogs, tend to be more strongly linked to short-term impacts, while others, such as people feeding wildlife, tend to result in long-term behavior changes.
Methods for balancing public use with wildlife protection have been developed in the field of park and wilderness management. Research and trial-and-error experience have produced new techniques for managing land use which address ways to minimize the impacts of public use on wildlife. Techniques include 1) siting and design; 2) use management; and 3) wildlife management. Siting and design issues include placement of trails to keep habitat areas coherent, avoidance of breeding areas, and use of various types of buffers such as fencing or vegetation. Use management strategies include restricting numbers of visitors and/or access times, as well as educating users on the habitats and species at a site so that they understand the adverse impacts of certain types of behavior, such as going off a trail. Wildlife management includes such techniques as encouraging nesting in areas with less visitor traffic and reducing predator populations to offset the impact of increased predator access to vulnerable wildlife.
In a number of locations around the Bay, such as Arrowhead Marsh and Cogswell Marsh, both under the jurisdiction of the East Bay Regional Park District, many of these methods are being successfully utilized to allow co-existence of wildlife and public visitors. All of these techniques depend on a thorough understanding of the area, the wildlife, and the response to human presence. They are subject to other factors as well, including visitor demands, regulations such as endangered species listings, and financial resources.
The new public access policy adopted by BCDC is intended to be sufficiently flexible to allow consideration of each proposal in light of all of these factors. In addition, the research done by the Public Access and Wildlife Compatibility Project produced a valuable array of potential management tools for Bay Area wildlife areas, with descriptions of their advantages and disadvantages, which may be incorporated into BCDC's Public Access Design Guidelines at a future date. However, since each project will need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, there is still the potential for disagreement on appropriate management strategies for future projects. Successful implementation of the new policy will depend on good data about individual habitats and early consideration of public access and wildlife protection during the planning phase.
Leslie Stewart
More Views on How to Use the Bay
The annual San Francisco Bay Decisionmakers Conference, "Bay Infrastructure— Decisions Today for a Livable Tomorrow" will be held October 29 at the Oakland Convention Center. Featuring major elected officials and agency heads, the conference will include panel discussions on Ferries, Water Supply, Airports, and a Regional Vision encompassing various Bay transportation options. For more information, contact the Bay Planning Coalition at 415-397-2293, or conference@bayplanningcoalition.org.