Rhode Island's trails are not so happy

        Standing on her driveway in South Kingstown, Margaret Bucheit points to a stone wall less than 200 feet away that marks the boundary of the Trustom Pond National Wildlife Refuge. Its proximity is worrisome to Bucheit and her neighbors because the refuge will be allowing bowhunting in the adjacent woodlands for the first time beginning next fall, and the prospect makes them feel unsafe.
        While she doesn’t object to hunting – her husband, William Ohley, frequently hunts with a long-bow – she has witnessed poachers in clandestine hunting stands and drunk hunters in areas that have been closed to hunting since the refuge was established in 1973.
        “Safety is our main concern,” says Bucheit. “If they’re going to do it, do it safely, though we’d prefer that they don’t do it at all. There are so many houses around and so many people looking at wildlife, it’s crazy to think it can be done safely under the current plan.”
        The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which owns and manages the refuge, has established safety zones prohibiting hunting within 200 feet of houses and 100 feet of refuge trails, but Bucheit and Ohley say it isn’t adequate, especially since signs won’t be posted identifying the location of the zones. “That

Illustration by John Rego

size safety zone would have been fine 40 years ago,” says Ohley, “but modern crossbow arrows can travel 500 yards. To do it safely, they need a much bigger safety zone.” Equally worrisome, they say, is that no safety zone is planned around the trails through the neighborhood’s deeded right-of-way into the refuge that many residents walk regularly.
        Bucheit and Ohley have hired a lawyer to represent their neighborhood’s interests in an effort to delay the hunting plan until their concerns are addressed. Neighbors adjacent to the John Chafee National Wildlife Refuge in Narragansett, which was opened to hunting last fall for the first time, have taken similar steps. Hunting has also been expanded at two other national wildlife refuges in the state, and the first “mentored hunt” for youth, disabled veterans and other special populations at Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge in Middletown will take place in 2022 or 2023.
        The conflict between hunters and walkers has often been contentious, with each group wanting access to prime public lands at certain times of the year without having to worry about the other. Yet it’s far from the only conflict among user groups at wildlife refuges, state and municipal parks, wildlife management areas, and other properties open to multiple uses.
        “But our issue is lethal,” says Buckheit. “It can kill people.”
        While that may be true, other user conflicts can generate just as much angst. A conflict last year between a New York City birdwatcher and a woman who let her dogs roam unleashed in Central Park, leading to a racially-charged incident that received international news coverage, illustrates the drama that sometimes results. And Rhode Island’s birders are quick to note that this is a common problem in the Ocean State, too.
        Birders say their biggest concern about unleashed dogs is for the health and safety of ground-nesting birds that off-leash dogs may trample, frighten and stress.
        “The worst-case scenario is direct predation, but the continued stress of reacting to a predator can be a cause of nest failure,” says Dan Berard, a lifelong birder and international bird tour leader who serves as president of the Ocean State Bird Club. “During migration, species that form large flocks tend to be at the same places where dogs will be off leash, like beaches or fields. These birds are constantly on the lookout for danger from a wide range of predators. Being flushed by a predator is a normal part of life for these birds, but being chased over and over again by several dogs off leash is not.”
        Dogs kept on a leash are much less of a problem, according to Audubon Society of Rhode Island bird expert Laura Carberry, because the leash restricts the amount of area the dog can reach. “Birds and other wildlife can learn to keep away from paths where dogs are kept on a leash,” she says. Birders note that the unleashed dog problem is especially concerning at Moonstone Beach in South Kingstown, the trail to Rome Point in North Kingstown, and Chace Farm Preserve in Lincoln, where online...

Finish reading this article in the February 2021 issue of Rhode Island Monthly.