Vehicle-based recreation and compliance for three beaches in northern New South Wales

Vehicles can be a serious vector for human recreation disturbance to beach-nesting birds because they enable people, often with their dogs, to disperse over greater distances than they would typically walk. The objective of this study was to quantify vehicle-based recreation and compliance with regulations and codes of conduct for Seven Mile (Lennox Head), South Ballina and Airforce (Evans Head) beaches, N New South Wales, Australia. South Ballina and Airforce supported remnant beach-nesting Australian pied oystercatcher Haematopus longirostris populations. Vehicle-based recreation and compliance varied among beaches. The most frequent activities observed were picnics (31–50%), driving (14–30%) and fishing (5–16%). Picnics can be intensely disturbing for beach-nesting birds because they typically occur on the super-tidal zone and are long-duration events. Compliance was high for beach driving zones and driving below the high tide limit but variable for speed limits (33–79%) and dog zones (6–100%). The Discussion argues that regulations and codes of conduct are not effective for managing the social and environmental impacts of beach driving if they do not limit the numbers of vehicles.