PORT HUENEME : Resort to Threaten Birds, Biologist Says

A university biologist hired by critics of a proposed recreational vehicle resort in Port Hueneme has concluded that the project would threaten rare sand dunes and the endangered birds living and foraging on them.

The $3,500 report by Pat Herron Baird, an ornithologist with Cal State Long Beach, was commissioned by the local chapter of the Sierra Club and residents of the Surfside III condominiums, who have opposed the resort.

According to Baird’s study, researchers found endangered birds visiting or feeding on the 10-acre site in April and May. They also believe that a pair of snowy plovers nest there.

“There will be a net loss of habitat and with this net loss will come loss of individual members of” endangered species, including the California least tern, snowy plovers and Belding’s Savannah sparrows, Baird stated.

Alan Sanders, president of the local Sierra Club, said Baird’s study would help state regulators understand the importance of the proposed RV resort site.

“Some of the key agency people have known all along that the city’s version of the impacts of the project on biological resources was not accurately stated,” Sanders said. “However, these people are not in a position to come down and do their own investigation.”

City Manager John R. Velthoen responded to the report Thursday, saying the study contained only indirect evidence that the snowy plover actually nests on the site.

“This is not a wetland,” Velthoen said of the proposed site. “It would be incredible to believe that any animals are breeding on the site because it is so disturbed by human activity.”