This Land, Your Land

Where fear of explosions won't keep people away from a certain stretch of beach at Currituck National Wildlife Refuge, officials are hoping fear of a parking ticket will.

Signs warning visitors of unexploded military shells in the sand dunes north of Corolla have not kept people away, so the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which administers wildlife refuges, is adding “No Parking/No Stopping" signs, a news release says.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in 2007 that unexploded rockets, bombs and machine-gun ammunition lie within 182 acres in the Monkey Island Tract of the Currituck refuge, about a mile north of Corolla. They were left from Naval training during WWII.

The Corps has decided the area needs to remain closed despite cleanup efforts.

This week, Refuge Manager Mike Hoff said signage identifying the danger in the area “has proven ineffective.” The refuge has documented more than 650 trespass incidents last year within the affected area.

The Monkey Island Tract is about a mile wide and a mile across, according to the Virginian-Pilot. People often use the beach, but the area west of the dunes is seldom traveled except by Corolla wild horses.

The new no-parking zone extends from the end of N.C. 12 north 1.5 miles to Mile Post 14.

The New & Observer today had a nice story about a pair of nesting bald eagles raising two chicks at Jordan Lake that are being monitored by a webcam operated by N.C. State University.

"The eaglets hatched this month, and the website has received tens of thousands of hits and about 1,500 visitors from more than a dozen countries since it was put up in December," The N&O says. "The chicks should remain on the nest until they fully develop in mid-April."

The webcam project grew from a bird-watching class field trip for an NCSU biology class.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which administers the lake and a recreation area at the dam site, tracks eagle nests throughout the Triangle, and has been monitoring these eagles during the past several breeding seasons.

There are more than 70 breeding pairs of bald eagles in North Carolina today, including five active nests on Jordan Lake, where 32,868 acres preserved for recreation and wildlife management also include a popular state recreation area, which has five campgrounds, the underappreciated Jordan Lake Educational State Forest and state Game Lands.