January 25, 2008

Number of people: 7. Number of dogs: 2. Walking or running: 4. Photography: 1. Surfing: 2. There are several parking areas, did not check one of them.

Litter

Disturbances: Shorebirds moving in response to humans/dogs

saw around 20-25 plovers, many more than I usually see at this beach (usually I see no birds other than a few gulls and once, an eagle).

Ocean-based debris (from fishing boats, ship trash, etc.), Marine debris (plastic, styrofoam, etc. washing in from the sea), Styrofoam.

many small slides.

No exposed fossil tree root/trunk on this visit. "Garnet" sands very visible (garnet, pyroxenes [probable] & amphiboles--red violet, green & black). Beach clean except for an unusually large number of the colored bits of plastic, # present in driftline increased as walked south towards Beverly Beach. In the section of the mile where beach is exposed cliff sediments (or poorly consolidated sandstones, mudstones) the primary agent of erosion (bar major events like megastorms of December 3 &4) would seem to be rainfall. Cliffs looked dissected by water running down the cliffs. As I stood near one cliffed area w/exposed rock, I saw bits of one strata come tumbling & bouncing down onto the beach--no wind, tide going out. Many mini slides evidenced by small heaps of sediment perhaps topped by a dislodged pad of salal--saw at least 5 of these types of mini-slides--looked to be perhaps 5-6 feet wide. Some more tree roots exposed perhaps. A few boulders at the base of the cliff just north of BB that I don't remember seeing on my last visit. Nothing major but evidence of steady & ongoing erosion. Beautiful day--sunny, warm, just a mild breeze. An continuing (increasing?) problem I've noticed this winter is of people letting their dogs chase shore birds, gulls & plovers. I often walk from Agate Beach wayside to Jumpoff Joe, or at SB state park (day use area to south jetty) and have seen people walking along obliviously (or uncaring) while their dog(s) charge again & again after the plovers or gulls (or the occasional heron). I don't enjoy nerving myself up to go up to to someone to ask him/her to please stop his/her dog from chasing the birds. I pretty much got into a brief shouting match with a woman the other day --one of her dogs was chasing every gull he saw--and almost got a few. He upset every bird within 100 feet or more, he'd run into the water, etc. Never got tired. She told me gulls weren't endangered (I guess that made it ok for her dog to chase them). However, after exchanging some more remarks, I noticed that she did seem to keep both dogs a bit closer to her on her way back to her car (I was also on my way back, she probably thought I was tracking her, I wasn't). I see this kind of behavior for 4-5 days in a row (different people). It is not particularly difficult to train a dog not to chase after shore birds. For years, I had a dog I'd been given because she was chasing the owner's chickens (and the person had not been able to persuade her to stop doing so). It took basic obedience training, one episode of her getting into deeper water then she'd expected or wanted to be in (trying to "catch" birds floating 100 feet offshore), and two special efforts (perhaps 1 minute each) on my part to convince her to stop chasing shorebirds, which she did for the rest of her life. We walked (she ran much of the time) on the beach probably 310 days/year. I'm not that great a dog trainer! If I can do it, so can anyone else.I don't know what other people are seeing, but I am concerned by what seems to me like an increase in people on the beach in the winter w/dogs they let chase birds continuously (whatever the dog feels like doing), while other people keep their dogs leashed. I am concerned about the effect on the birds, but also, since I very much enjoyed being able to let my dog off lead on the beach (so did she) and sometimes take care of a dog who I can let off lead (she does not chase birds or bother/scare people, etc.), that eventually dogs will be banned from the beaches altogether because of the thoughtless/negligent behavior of what I hope is a minority of dog owners. Or there will be only a very few areas one can take dogs.