By
Cat Viglienzoni - July 12, 2010
Federal officials want to keep humans from disrupting an
island near Martha's Vineyard that they say is an important wildlife refuge -
and a potentially deadly hazard. The island, aptly named No Man's Land, was
previously used by the Navy for about 50 years as an aerial bombing range.
Since 1970, part of the island has been known as No Man's
Land National Wildlife Refuge, and in 1998 when the Navy relinquished ownership
of the island, the entire island became a refuge. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service took possession of the land to maintain it for conservation.
Because it was federal land, other federal agencies had
an opportunity to acquire that land before it was disposed of in some other way.
Since the Fish & Wildlife Service already had an interest in the island because
they'd been cooperated with the Navy to manage a third of it as a refuge, they designated
the rest of the island for habitat conservation.
But Refuge Manager Libby Herland said in an interview with
WERS News the transfer came with a stipulation that the island could not have
visitors - at least, not human ones. The decades of munitions training left
many unexploded weapons on the island that are impossible to completely remove.
Herland said the island is off-limits to the public because it is a hazard.
"Not all of the ordnance - the unexploded ordnance - that
fell on the island was on the surface - a lot of it went into the ground," she
said. "So every year, more and more of this ordnance kind-of keeps coming up to
the surface just like rocks come up in your garden, the ordnance will come up
as well. And it cannot be cleaned up to the point where it is safe for humans
to be on the island."
Visitors who do not know what to look for - who don't know what the unexploded ordnance looks like - do not have the training to be on the island in a safe manner. Even for those who have that training, Herland said there are areas that are still off-limits to them.
But what doesn't work out well from a tourist's
standpoint works out well from an ecological one. Herland said now the island
has a coastal maritime shrubland habitat important to migrating land birds that
will come through there on their fall migrations south. She said the shrubs on the island are a good
food source for those land birds on their journeys. It is also important to
migrating raptors and breeding shorebirds like the oystercatcher.
Herland said they even had a piping plover nest there,
which she said is "very encouraging." The plover is listed by the federal
government as a threatened species, making it protected under the Endangered
Species Act.
But Herland said despite their multitude of signs warning
would-be visitors to stay off the island, they have trespassers, which can disrupt
the habitat.
"People disturb wildlife. Even if they don't mean to,
their presence can be disruptive," she said. "And then not everybody behaves in
a way that is actually less intrusive anyway. There's always a negative side to
having the public out on land that's being managed for wildlife - littering,
cutting down vegetation for fires and things like that."
There are three options for the land's use. The one the
Fish & Wildlife Service recommends would make No Man's Land protected, which
would mean it would be preserved as is and managed very little. Another would
keep it at its current management, which is slightly above that of a
wilderness. The final option would expand federal management and increase ties with
the Martha's Vineyard Wampanoag tribe that would allow for limited cultural and
ceremonial use. The tribe has a cultural connection to the island.
(Photo courtesy: University of Massachusetts, Wikimedia Commons)
