Sand, Shell, and Wrack Active Shoreline

species
(39)

American Oystercatcher, Black Skimmer, Black-bellied Plover, Bonaparte's Gull, Brown Pelican, Caspian Tern, Common Tern, Double-crested Cormorant, Dunlin, Forster's Tern... further results

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plans
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North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan 2015

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geographies
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Atlantic Coastal Plain

The 2015 North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan defines 41 priority habitats for the state. More information about this habitat can be found in Section 4.4.16.

Habitat Priorities

Surveys

• Conduct distributional and status surveys for pelagic and shore birds, small mammals, and reptiles that may utilize this habitat. (Surveys Priority)

Monitoring

• Develop long-term monitoring to identify population trends and to assess performance of conservation actions. Monitoring plans should be coordinated with other existing monitoring programs where feasible.
• Design an ecological monitoring system that can measure how the beach ecosystem responds to human pressures particular to the coastline. Use long-term monitoring to measure the changing health of the beach in response to long-term and cumulative pressures (Peterson and Manning 2001).
• Conduct ecological monitoring before, during, and after construction of shoreline hardening structures and beach renourishment projects to best understand the extent to which the beach ecosystem changes. Monitoring should also continue well after project completion to understand long-term effects of this anthropogenic disturbance, as well as cumulative effects of multiple nourishment projects. Scientists should use a scientifically and statistically robust monitoring design that looks at multiple indicators of beach ecosystem health. Analysis of data should include a test of statistical power (Peterson and Manning 2001).

Research

• Research to facilitate appropriate conservation actions includes habitat use/preferences, spawning location and timing, fecundity, population dynamics, population genetics, feeding, competition, and predation.

Management Practices

• Minimize the negative effects on beach ecology from beach renourishment projects by following a set of BMPs that include proper sediment choice, timing, spatial implementation, site-based design, ecological monitoring, and minimizing conflicts of interest
• Break large renourishment projects into smaller project zones in order to minimize impacts of direct burial to turtle nests. Intersperse project zones with untouched beach to facilitate recolonization of invertebrate fauna (Speybroeck et al. 2006).
• Complete renourishment projects before the start of the warm season to improve chances of invertebrate recolonization. Project implementation should be avoided at times that coincide with critical life stages of sensitive species, such as beach-nesting turtles or piping plover nesting seasons (Speybroeck et al. 2006).
• Although protected by law in North Carolina, feral horse herds should be restricted from some areas where they currently roam free. Such restriction would be particularly beneficial at Shackleford Banks and Currituck National Wildlife Refuge (Porter et al. 2014). Use exclosures to fence off portions of barrier islands where feral horses still occur, allowing recovery of maritime grassland communities.