On April 9, a federal court ruled that the California Department of Parks and Recreation has violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing motorized vehicle use that harms the threatened Western snowy plover at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area. The court granted an injunction halting off-road vehicle activity in snowy plover habitat.
“The court’s ruling makes it clear that off-roading in snowy plover habitat violates the Endangered Species Act and must stop,” said Zeynep Graves, a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity. “For decades, state officials have let off-road vehicles tear through protected habitat at Oceano Dunes, injuring and killing snowy plovers, harassing roosting flocks, and degrading their habitat. These threatened shorebirds will be safer and stand a better chance at survival thanks to this ruling.” The Center filed suit in 2020 after providing notice of violations to State Parks in 2017 and 2020.
At issue is the lack of an Endangered Species Act permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to incidentally “take” protected wildlife, which State Parks can only obtain if it develops a Habitat Conservation Plan that protects the plovers.
Although state park officials began developing a habitat conservation plan in the early 2000s after being sued by the Sierra Club, the plan remains unfinished more than two decades later. The agency has continued to authorize motorized vehicle use at Oceano Dunes without a permit. Its own records document many incidents in which snowy plovers have been killed and harmed by vehicle activity.
Currently under federal review, State Parks’ draft Habitat Conservation Plan is severely flawed and any federal permit issued on that basis would share those flaws.
San Luis Obispo County can and should amend its Local Coastal Plan (LCP) to permanently end the harm to endangered species, the environment, and the community of Oceano caused by off-road activity in the Oceano Dunes.