It’s clear-cut. And it’s settled.

What I lovingly call “Plover Park” is formally known as The Barnegat Light Habitat Restoration Project.

Whatever you choose to call it, the area is in the shape of a backwards, uppercase “L”.

The long side of the “L” runs out along the inlet, is about thirty five acres, and was built first, in 2019. The shorter side is just three acres, runs along the oceanfront, and was built last. This smaller oceanfront section was always part of the project plan, but just took a while to get back to and complete after the initial part of the park was built. Those last three acres were finally added in early 2025.

That winter, I was thrilled to hear that the bulldozers were out finishing this area because it was clear we needed it now that that the initial phase was such a success and so many birds had settled in the new habitat. Plus, the loss of the beachfront to vegetation was one of the saddest side-effects when the giant rock jetty was built to shore up the inlet for boat traffic. It needed its habitat restored perhaps even more than the inlet side did.

But, right away, I knew something was wrong when someone sent me a new article from the local Sandpaper headlined “Clear-Cutting for Plovers Along Barnegat Light Beach Causes Outrage.” I was shocked, and baffled. Outraged? About restoring the habitat to its original, natural glory for the benefit of local animals? Who could possibly be against that, I asked, apparently naively.

Then I knew something was really wrong when someone else sent me a YouTube video from a prominent local business, with thousands of views, where they toured the new area, fresh in the wake of the bulldozers, and suggested to viewers (and I’m not making this up) that it was built by the windmill companies as revenge for Barnegat Light having protested offshore wind projects. The comments were loaded with pleas to write your congressperson and stop the habitat from being restored and the animals from being helped, as if it were a giant windmill itself, and as if any congressperson would possibly be against this. Say what?!

This would be just the first, small taste of what would be a very difficult season working in Barnegat Light. People were, indeed, outraged, and they often expressed that to me, to others working in the park, and even to the animals at times. Even some people who read this blog, and have for years, got swept up in the outrage, approaching me in public, or sending me argumentative emails that were hard to reason with.

It was like a bad dream. Except it was everyone around me who was asleep, and I didn’t have a clue as to how I might wake them up.

People were surely emotionally upset, but when asked why, listed scores of things that not only were simply not true, but often were the exact opposite of the truth. Every argument I heard against the park was essentially a misunderstanding or a falsehood that was so easy to refute, it became quite difficult to do so!

These arguments fell basically under three main themes.

The first was that the park was destroying the natural area.

This is wrong, and backwards. It was the addition of the jetty to fortify the inlet for boat traffic that destroyed the natural area. The Barnegat Light Habitat Restoration Project was doing the opposite, and exactly what its name suggested: it was restoring the habitat. The jetty filled the area unnaturally with sand, and blocked the natural flow of water, so caused the most delicate and precious part of the ecosystem to become unnaturally overgrown with thick vegetation, at the expense of everything that lived there. The heart of a barrier island that should be thriving with life was now a dead zone. Plover Park fixed it. Sure, some people got used to the grotesquely overgrown area, came to love it, and no one likes change at the beach, but it’s still incorrect to flip the goals and values of the project on their head, while ignoring the actual history of the inlet. And note, this has nothing to do with the area’s spectacular, innermost maritime forest. Everybody loves that. No one wants to harm it, and no one did.

The second was that the project harmed all other wildlife just to help the piping plover.

Again, this wrong, and backwards. By restoring the habitat to its original, natural state, it created the environment all animals here were seeking: the natural, historic habitat they evolved in. The amount of animal life it services now is completely insane. Yet, for some reason, people just kept throwing out the names of species, and claiming that they were harmed, when anyone could easily see with their own eyes how they were thriving in the restored area. Pick any: mourning doves, juncos, bunnies, robins, egrets, raccoons, blackbirds, osprey, snow owls, fox, coyote, terrapin, mink, otters, box turtles… all of them, thriving in the restored, protected habitat, in numbers not seen in years. Even the animals who don’t belong here love the open space, the water features, the protection, and the rich forage of the restored habitat!

The third was that the public should have been given more notice and chance for input

This one is wrong too. This project has been in the works, very publicly, for years. The park, the local government, the state, the feds, Rutgers, Conserve Wildlife Foundation… everyone was involved. There have been numerous articles, public meetings, and presentations about it, and just a massive array of different experts contributed to make it the success it’s been, and were very publicly vocal about it too.

But I get it! Every time I come over the bridge and hit some annoying construction, I’m furious, and I mutter under my breath, “someone should have told us about this.” But if I’m being totally honest, I can vaguely remember skipping over at least 10 recent articles in the local paper about the construction. I had an opportunity to be involved, but I wasn’t interested enough to do so.

Fortunately I’ve experienced the futility of attacking internet-fueled misinformation head-on before. And I can recognize the difference between when people are seeking solutions, or just looking for a fight.

So I bit my tongue, and pretty much quit posting last summer. It was pretty painful because, clearly, this stuff is really important to me and the driving force in my life is trying to help others see how amazing the island’s animals are, and how much low-hanging fruit there is for restoring a little natural balance to the island.

And most of all, Plover Park is an easily verifiable miracle and an absolute treasure. It is the greatest thing to happen to the island’s natural world since the first Dutch explorer’s leather boot crushed a plover’s nest when it first set foot here. It is something we should be really proud of; not outraged about. That’s what hurt the most.

We affectionately started calling those final three acres that caused so much controversy “The Clearcut.” As they say, “own the insult.” While clear-cut is the correct term for removing vegetation, there was something kind of harsh about it; it conjures up images of destroying rainforests and other activities that are exactly the opposite of what these three acres were all about.

While I was 100% confident in the need for and the long-term value of the new area, I’d be lying if I said both me and others like Todd, Bri, Kashi, and Emily weren’t really praying for a quick start to populating the area. It would have been completely normal and acceptable for the area to be empty for a season or two while the animals slowly discovered it. But with all this public outrage, and so many people eager to see this project fail, it would surely help if it was an immediate, raging success.

And, gods be good, that is exactly what happened. We were happy enough when a young piping plover named Abraxos , hatched in the park in 2024, returned in 2025 and became the first settler of the Clearcut, fledging its first chicks. Then oystercatcher pair 02 joined him and created the second nest in the Clearcut. Even though they failed, they were responding to the new area, so that gave us something good to share about it. That was enough for us.

But then they showed up. The adorable least terns. Along with piping plovers, oystercatchers, and skimmers, the least terns are one of the four species of beach nesting birds who are most desperate for the Clearcut’s humble three acres of restored and protected beachfront habitat.

First it was one pair, then it was two, then a dozen, then dozens. By the end of the its first summer, the Clearcut was hosting one of the largest colonies of least terns in New Jersey. It was absolutely, undeniably filled with birds. You haven’t seen anything like this on LBI in decades, and decades. By the end of the summer, there were more nesting birds in the new, 3 acre Clearcut than there were in the entire other 35 acres!

Build it and they will come is a tired cliche, but it is so incredibly appropriate and true in the case of the Clearcut. On LBI, we took 16 miles aways from these animals. We then gave them back a measly three acres and they absolutely, and immediately, flooded into it. It is as clear of an example of just how desperate these animals are for just a little bit of space.

This is a Reading I have written, and rewritten, a hundred times in my head. Sometimes it was sad, sometimes angry, sometimes snarky, sometimes hopeful, other times pleading. Sometimes it was a capitulation, and other times, a victory lap. The whole situation was an embarrassing misunderstanding. If you were deceived into thinking one of the greatest gifts ever given to our local animals was something bad, it is totally understandable.

The truth of the incredible beauty of the Clearcut does not care (and neither do I!) It exists to be cherished, treasured, and enjoyed by everyone.

This season, The Clearcut is continuing its trajectory towards becoming the largest, and most successful, colony in New Jersey. Even if it doesn’t hit that milestone, its magnificent achievement is undeniable. A million Facebook posts and YouTube videos can no longer stand against the reality you can see with your own eyes if you walk out the path at 6th street and see hundreds of birds take the skies shrieking in a cloud of chaotic glory, giving you a tiny glimpse of what this island was once like; what it was born to be.

It is now undeniable. It’s clear-cut. And it’s settled.

And prepare yourself. Because something big is afoot in the Clearcut, and, with a little Plover Park luck, coming soon. Something so outrageous it will probably melt the hearts of even the most ardently outraged.