Park Service is not sportsman’s friend

If uncertainty once existed about the National Park Service’s course to nurture animal and plant life at public venues — acknowledging the need to protect some birds and turtles at Cape Hatteras National Seashore — the federal agency erased all doubt recently in Florida.

And somebody — we know it ain’t gonna be the president —  really needs to rein in this out-of-control, anti-human agency.

Yet, it’s a harsh judgment. But the NPS is demonstrating, once again, it will violate the original intent of parklands’ creation and push the envelope as far as it can, even to the detriment of American citizens, particularly those who live inside parks such as Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The Hatteras story is well known. A few birders and environmental extremists sued the NPS, even though the agency had an OBX plan that worked for birds, turtles, residents, tourists and visitors. The only ones who didn’t like the original and interim NPS management plans, which put large stretches of beach off limits, were birders and enviros who needed a cause célèbre to wring more donations out of their support bases.

Unfortunately for OBX visitors and surf fishermen, Audubon and Defenders of Wildlife got to present their side to a judge who applied federal guidelines previously crafted by extremists inside the NPS and in Congress. The original intent that the CAHA seashore was created mainly for the enjoyment of the public was ignored. Birds and turtles were enthroned as people, and ORVs were summarily kicked off Cape Hatteras beaches for most of the year.

The pattern now repeats in Florida in an even more extreme case. In 1997, using threats of lawsuits, enviros succeeded in creating the “Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary,” a 46-square mile swath of ocean in the Dry Tortugas west of Key West. No fishing, diving or boating was allowed. At the time, NPS started work on a General Management Plan to extend off-limits water to include Everglades Park and Biscayne Bay.

Sixteen years later, NPS is trying to make the GMP a reality by doubling the size of the off-limits areas from Biscayne Bay to Florida Bay. This would include inshore waters immediately south of Miami all the way to Islamorada, the center of the Sunshine State’s annual $2 billion (yes, billion) recreational fishing industry (and Florida doesn’t even have a significant commercial netting industry).

Florida’s anglers, boaters and charter captains are a little miffed at the NPS for this attempt to ban angling at the state’s top coastal fishing venue.

And think about this: the NPS already has locked down all access at Cape Hatteras beaches. If the Florida GMP plan goes through, anglers will be locked out of the best red drum, snook, speckled trout and tarpon waters in the world.

Is this really what hope and change was all about?