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A New Rule Balances Wildlife and Off-Road-Vehicle Use on a North Carolina Beach
Congressional legislation and a pending civil suit threaten the future of a new rule that protects wildlife and allows vehicles on Cape Hatteras National Seashore.
Five years ago tire tracks carved by recreational off-road vehicles traced a path of destruction over dead birds and demolished eggs. Today least tern chicks, nesting loggerhead sea turtles, and piping plovers are flourishing at North Carolina's Cape Hatteras National Seashore. After a legal battle waged by Audubon North Carolina and Defenders of Wildlife, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, the National Park Service issued a new rule put into effect this past February that allows ORV access in certain areas within the seashore while also protecting sea turtles and birds. Yet despite this initial compromise, pending congressional legislation and civil litigation could negate the park service's ruling, threatening bird species, other wildlife, and plants on the shore.
"Historically, Cape Hatteras National Seashore has been very important for birds that depend on the barrier islands for nesting, migratory stopovers, and wintering areas," explains Walker Golder, Audubon North Carolina's deputy director.
How to manage Cape Hatteras has been a conservation issue for decades. In 1972 President Richard Nixon issued an executive order requiring the Interior Department and the National Park Service to develop rules regulating ORV use on public lands for the purpose of protecting public safety, minimizing conflicts among land users, and protecting natural resources. President Jimmy Carter clarified the order five years later, saying federal agencies must close areas to ORV use whenever such use was adversely affecting natural resources.
In spite of the two executive orders, the National Park Service never finalized an ORV management plan for Cape Hatteras, relying instead on a draft interim plan developed in 1978.
But from what the Park Service has experienced in recent years, it is possible the draft was never finalized because of controversy and political pressure,explains Mike Murray, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. "ORV management at the seashore is a longstanding, emotionally charged, and highly polarized issue," he says. "There was resistance to portions of the 1978 draft plan, such as a proposed ORV permit requirement, just as there's resistance to the new plan and regulation. I can fully understand why it has been so difficult for the Park Service to complete an ORV management plan and special regulation at the seashore."
As the years passed, growing numbers of people drove on the fragile shores. And more ORVs meant more people in remote areas. Protection for birds decreased, as did breeding productivity, while disturbance increased. The seashore's bird populations began to decline. In 1992, 14 years after the NPS began managing the area based on the draft interim plan, only 12 piping plover breeding pairs made use of the shore. By 2003 that number dropped to two. Only one chick fledged that year (none fledged in 2002 and 2004). From 1995 to 2004 the number of common tern nests on the shore decreased 76 percent, from 739 to 180. By 2007 the number of terns and skimmers nesting on the seashore's beaches had reached historic lows. Indeed, black skimmers and gull-billed terns were absent as a nesting species that year.
"When we began to see problems, we began to work with the seashore to raise awareness of the issues and the need to protect birds on the beach," Golder says.
Because of this effort and to address a continuing decline in nesting bird populations, in 2006 the Park Service, after a yearlong feasibility assessment, issued an Interim Protected Species Management Strategy to provide resource protection guidance until a long-term ORV management plan and regulation could be developed.
"We commented repeatedly that the Interim Protected Species Management Strategy was inadequate," says Golder. "They did focus on piping plovers in 2007 but ignored other birds, sea turtles, science, and the recommendations of the U.S. Geological Survey."
"Unfortunately, the Interim Strategy did not even incorporate the measures that the government's own scientists identified as necessary to protect wildlife at the seashore," says Julie Youngman, senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center. "The natural resources of Cape Hatteras were not being protected for future generations." Jason Rylander, senior attorney for Defenders of Wildlife, adds, "It was not a legally valid ORV management plan by any means."
On October 18, 2007, Audubon and Defenders of Wildlife, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, sued the National Park Service, arguing that its governance of ORVs was inadequate. The Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance, a pro-ORV lobbying group, and Dare and Hyde counties, where the seashore is located, intervened in the suit. After several months the parties agreed to implement another temporary but stricter science-based plan regulating ORV use on Cape Hatteras until the National Park Service finalized a formal ORV management regulation. Under these stricter protections, rare wildlife began to rebound, with several species breeding in record-setting numbers. In 2010, for instance, the seashore had 15 fledged piping plover chicks, 26 fledged American oystercatcher chicks, and 153 sea turtle nests. The court agreement also set a deadline for the final rule to be adopted.
After several years of study, research, and public participation, the National Park Service put its final regulation into effect this past February. The rule allows for year-round ORV beach access on 28 of the shore's 67 miles while simultaneously protecting birds and other wildlife.
"We feel the final rule was very much a compromise," says Heather Starck, executive director of Audubon North Carolina. "It was not everything we hoped for in terms of protecting wildlife," she adds, noting there are more miles devoted to ORV users than she thought were necessary."The folks that use ORVs in Cape Hatteras are only about two percent of the people that visit the seashore."
Still, the Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance continues to fight the new regulations even though the majority of the 21,000 commenters on the final environmental impact statement were in favor of the restrictions. In the past the group successfully lobbied in favor of the interim plan on Cape Hatteras. Between June 2008 and January 2009 members of the North Carolina congressional delegation introduced three bills, two in the House of Representatives and one in the Senate, to return to the more lenient management of ORVs under the Interim Strategy. None of those bills passed, but after the final rule was put in place, Representative Walter Jones presented one bill in the House, and Richard Burr, supported by Kay Hagan reintroduced another in the Senate. Both are designed to abolish the regulation and return to prior management measures under which protected species had declined.
Despite the previous bills' failure to pass, Mike Daulton, Audubon vice president for government relations, is cautious. "As long as there's legislation pending, the birds of Cape Hatteras are in danger," he says.
Even if the bills don't pass the House or Senate, the final ruling's supporters have civil litigation to contend with.
The Cape Hatteras Access Preservation Alliance also filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department alleging that the National Park Service failed to give ORV riders' interests meaningful consideration. Audubon and Defenders of Wildlife joined the National Parks Conservation Association, represented by the Southern Environmental Law Center, in an effort to help defend the National Park Service's regulation in the lawsuit. (The alliance declined to comment on Cape Hatteras for this article.)
"The case is basically posturing, utterly without merit," explains Ted Williams, Audubon field editor. When Williams visited Cape Hatteras beaches in 2005 and 2006 he encountered the damage ORVs cause to bird breeding grounds (see "Beach Bums," January-February 2007). The park service's new rules, he says, will sustain imperiled species. But for the rules' dissidents, human access, not species protection, is the issue.
"It's sickening to drive down this island and see rope and signs saying no," explains Carol Busbey, who owns the Natural Art Surf Shop on Hatteras Island in Buxton. Busbey has run the shop for more than 30 years, but since the draft interim plan was replaced,her business has lost a lot of weekend business. "They closed off a lot of places that were special for a lot of people," Busbey says. One week, there were two piping plover nests out on the point, she says, and "they've got acres and acres of land closed."
Commenters on Ted Williams's Fly Rod & Reed blog also express their discontent. "It's not just about ORVs," wrote one. "One piping plover nest closes over 700 acres of beach to all. This is the kind of thing we're fighting." (More fervent comments contained obscenities and had to be edited by Williams.)
Williams's response is that "when we talk about 'fairness' we need to consider all Americans for all time, not the immediate appetites of a few loud, greedy ORV operators."
Although the conservation groups are hopeful that neither the bills nor the lawsuit will reverse the progress made, the attacks do distract the groups from determining if the new protections are effective, says Starck. Even more threatening is the potential result if the new rule is overturned, she says. Political camps opposed to wildlife conservation would see the success of these measures and attempt to reverse other rulings. "If that user group sees that it was overturned here, it could be a really dangerous precedent for wildlife in this country," she says.
Keep an eye out for an upcoming story on Cape Hatteras written by Ted Williams.
*This story was updated on June 13, 2013, to reflect a factual change.


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this wiki
Perfect | |
Album: | Glee: The Music, Volume 7 (Target US only) Glee: The Music, The Complete Season Three |
Released: | November 29, 2011 |
By: | P!nk |
Sung by: | Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson with New Directions |
Place: | The Choir Room |
Episode: | I Kissed a Girl |
Perfect by P!nk is featured in I Kissed a Girl, the seventh episode of Season Three. It is sung by Blaine and Kurt.
They sing it to Santana to show they support her completely for whoever she is. However, at the end of the song, Santana shows no signs of satisfaction, and is rude about the performance, which leaves everyone disappointed.
Made a wrong turn, once or twice
Dug my way out, blood and fire
Bad decisions, that's alright
Welcome to my silly life
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss "no way, it's all good," it didn't slow me down
Mistaken, always second guessing
Under estimated, look, I'm still around
Blaine and Kurt:
Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than, less than perfect
Pretty, pretty please, If you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing, you are perfect
To me
Kurt (Blaine):
You're so mean, (You're so mean)
When you talk (When you talk) about yourself, you were wrong
Change the voices (Change the voices) in your head (in your head)
Make them like you instead
Blaine and Kurt:
So complicated,
Look how big you'll make it!
Filled with so much hatred
Such a tired game
It's enough, I've done all I can think of
Chased down all my demons, see you do the same
Blaine and Kurt:
Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than, less than perfect
Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing, you are perfect
Kurt (louder in episode version):
To me
Blaine (with Kurt):
The whole world stares so I (swallow the fear)
The only thing I should be drinking is an (ice cold beer)
So cool in lying and we (try try try)
Blaine and Kurt:
But we try too hard, it's a waste of my time
Blaine (with Kurt):
Done looking for the critics, (cuz they're everywhere)
They don't like my jeans, they don't (get my hair)
Stringe ourselves and we (do it all the time)
Blaine and Kurt:
Why do we do that?
Why do I do that?
Why do I do that?
Yeaaah, ohhhhh!
Ohh, pretty pretty please!
Blaine with New Directions:
Pretty pretty please
Blaine and Kurt with New Directions:
Don't you ever ever feel
Like you're less then, less than perfect
Pretty pretty please if you ever ever feel
Like you're nothing you're perfect (Blaine: To me! yeaaaah)
New Directions:
Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than, (Blaine: You're perfect)
Less than perfect (Kurt: You're perfect to me! yeaah)
Blaine with New Directions:
Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel
Blaine and Kurt with New Directions:
Like you're nothing, you are perfect
Blaine and Kurt:
To me
- Like other performances, the lyrics were considered too vulgar, therefore being censored or changed.
- The original title of P!nk's song, F**king Perfect was changed to Perfect.
- This is the first song out of three songs featuring Blaine rapping, the second being Fly/I Believe I Can Fly and the third being Boys/Boyfriend.
- This is the second P!nk song to be sung by Blaine (Raise Your Glass being the first).
- In Makeover, Kurt says the half-sweater he wore in this performance belonged to his dead aunt, which he found it in her attic.
- Blaine mentions that both him and Kurt enjoy singing this song in the car together.
- At the start of the episode Kurt is seen wearing a white shirt with a blackish neck scarf. In this song he is wearing a red shirt with a cream turtle neck and in I'm the Only One he is wearing the outfit he wore in the start of the episode.
- Brittany goes from rubbing Santana's back to holding her hand back and forth.

subset: commoncrawl


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Joseph Bast: The Free Market Think Tank and Education
June 25, 2013
Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast recently appeared on the Milt Rosenberg Show for an in-depth discussion on the challenges to running a think tank in today's world. The lively discussion covered a whole range of issues, from health care to education. This is part 1 or 2.


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Hello Players!
I'm gathering all unresolved questions, pleas for errata, and points of clarification for the newest FAQ. Please post to this thread any questions or concerns that you have that have not yet made their way into the FAQ. Please also post any problems or points for clarification with the general rulebook and the current FAQ (1.3).
Thank you for your efforts, and here is to a fun and competitive regionals season for Call of Cthulhu.
Damon Stone
Associate LCG Designer
Fantasy Flight Games


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CG_1 Wood Frame Side Table
Price: $1,199.00Overview
Design by Cory Grosser, 2011.
By Coalesse.
The CG_1 table collection is slim and versatile with calming dimensions and gentle curves. It can be dressed up to show or dressed down to blend in any environment. Expertly crafted in oak or walnut, the CG_1 Wood Frame Side Table features a unique inner leg and foot detail in ¼" colored solid surface, providing a subtle, stylistic expression in an unexpected place. The leg detail, combined with an oak or walnut ½" thick veneer top, can create a quiet, monochromatic aesthetic or make a bold statement through contrasting materials and colors.
BIFMA level® 1 certified.
Material(s): Hardwood oak or walnut, wood veneer, solid surface
Dimensions: 20" W X 20" D X 19" H
Designer: Cory Grosser
Cory Grosser is an American product designer, brand strategist and educator. In 2002 he founded his studio in Los Angeles. The same year, he had his first international exhibition in Milan and secured his first consulting project from a Fortune 500 company. Since then, he has gone on to become one of America's top independent product designers. His career balances design work for high level European design brands, strategic consulting engagements for large corporations and teaching the next generation of designers. His work has been featured in books and journals worldwide, including the covers of several magazines. Surface Magazine named him one of the Top Avant-Garde Designers in America. His work has appeared in television and movies in America and abroad.
Cory has won several awards, including an ID Magazine Design Review Award, Best of Neocon Award, a Gold Award at IIDEX, and an I.Dot selection representing the best of Italian Design. His work has been shown in exhibitions and museums worldwide.
Cory is active in design education. He is a faculty member of Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. He has taught advanced studios sponsored by Chrysler, Roxy, Honda, Ford, Indy Racing League and Bernhardt Design. He has also served as a judge in several design competitions including the 2007 Bombay Sapphire Designer Glass competition, the selection committee for the Salone Satellite in Milan and the Spark awards. He has given talks and lectures internationally in cities as diverse as Milan, Toronto and San Salvador.
Born in Rochester, NY, Cory holds an Architecture degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and an Industrial Design degree from Art Center College of Design.
View other products by Cory GrosserManufacturer: Coalesse
Coalesse. For the new work day.
Work has been freed. From offices. From telephone lines. From preconceptions about where it has to happen. That trend is now a fact of life. Work and life are merging. Coalesse products are artfully designed to improve the quality of life at this highly fluid intersection. Comfortable, elegantly purposeful, and beautifully crafted, Coalesse products cross over between homes, offices, and anywhere in-between.
Crossover means homes and offices, meeting rooms and social spaces, private retreats and public places — the fluid intersections of work and life where boundaries are collapsing and creativity is roaming. Coalesse studies the new work day, how people are collaborating, contemplating, and socializing. Then they partner with some of the world's most talented designers to create artful solutions that combine comfort, function, and emotional satisfaction.
Coalesse has partnered with some of the world's most influential designers including Patricia Urquiola, Lievore Altherr Molina, Jean Marie Massaud, and Scott Wilson to create ingenious crossover furniture at the fascinating intersection of life and work. With over 80 industry design awards, Coalesse is a leader at the creative edge of the new ways people work.
View other products from Coalesse


text: Find this wine Find this wine Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon 1992 Pin It Tweet 2 years ago by Jacksafar More posts Silver Oak 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon Wine Bottle Jay & Nat brought. 6 months ago by Janroberts25 2008 Silver Oak Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon Morton's dinner with Steve and fam. Paired with bone-in filet topped with blue cheese butter sauce and carmelized onions 6 months ago by Jordan R. Silver Oak 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon Good Red atMegs for Christmas one year ago by Enewt147 2007 Silver Oak Cabernet Sauvignon 91 one year ago by Zachary A Osness Silver Oak 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon 07 silver oak: 5/5. Can't beat it. Kelly scale: 5/5. 07 = great year for Napa. one year ago by Scottymade


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Ocean Terminal terminus - Western Harbour, Leith Docks © Copyright: Peter Stubbs Photograph taken April 21, 2011
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