Last night, the Gloucester City Council voted unanimously to make permanent the ordinance change disallowing dogs on the beach after March 31st. A sunset clause had been added to the ordinance when the ordinance was passed last April. The sunset clause was expected to expire at the end of this year. The vote keeps in place the new regulation, which is that dogs are allowed on Good Harbor Beach from October 1st through March 31st.
The permanent rule will help all wildlife at Good Harbor Beach, but most especially nesting Piping Plovers (and Killdeers). We had a wonderfully successful year fledging three Piping Plover chicks, due we think to the cooler spring weather, the ban on dogs after April 1st, increased enforcement, and to the over 1,000 man hours donated by a group of 45 super dedicated Piping Plover volunteer monitors.
Thank you Gloucester City Council!
An extra huge shout out to two very special people– Ward One City Councilor Scott Memhard, who is also our new councilor liaison to the Animal Advisory Committee. He has been providing excellent, clear, non-combative, and non-prejudiced advice and is truly committed to assisting the committee positively, with an open and fair mind. Our deepest thanks to Heather Hall, who has spent the past month exhaustively combing through documentation to create a spreadsheet compiling the monitors report’s throughout the summer–that’s how we know there were 45 monitors total and 1,00 plus hours spent volunteering with the PiPls.
Thank you Scott and Heather ❤
Good Morning Gloucester 