Hochul designates Montauk Point as bird conservation area

The waters off the coast of Montauk Point support hundreds of seafaring bird species, including scoters, northern gannets, grebes, loons and terns.

To help ensure their survival, the state has designated the area as a state Bird Conservation Area.

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a bill creating the Montauk Point shoals BCA on Aug. 9. The legislation was sponsored by Assemb. Fred Thiele, a Democrat who represents the 1st Assembly district, and by Sen. Anthony Palumbo, a Republican who represents the 1st Senate district.

Thiele called the area "a critical habitat for tens of thousands of waterfowl and seabirds" and noted in a statement that some species are endangered and at risk.

The area provides important habitat to marine mammals, sea turtles and fish as well as birds. In the winter migrating sea ducks, including eiders and scoters, arrive in throngs from the north, spending several months around Long Island’s coastal waters before heading north again to their summer breeding grounds.

"Montauk Point in the wintertime is a remarkable place to go to see winter waterfowl," said John Turner, senior conservation policy advocate at Seatuck Environmental Association. "Historically, there could be 40, 50, 70,000 scoters and eiders bobbing in the water around the point."

Bird populations across the United States are in steep decline; a study in the journal Science estimated that 3 billion birds have been lost since 1970.

Seatuck, based in Islip, has been advocating for the BCA designation for Montauk Point since 2015.

Several species of shearwaters and storm petrels also visit Long island's eastern tip in the warmer months. Common terns, a species listed as threatened in New York, and roseate terns, a federally endangered species, are also part-time residents, during the spring and summer breeding season.

According to Hochul’s office, the BCA program ensures any planning and research that affects the area will include bird conservation.

Designating this crescent of marine habitat as a bird conservation area "doesn’t have any real regulatory teeth," Turner told Newsday, But he said it raises the ecological profile of the Point as a place that has "significance and value to bird life."

The law "makes it clear that if there are projects or activities that could be harmful, it would have to be taken into account," Turner said.

The law specifically notes that it does not "impose any new fishing restrictions."

The new conservation area covers the coastal waters between 3.5 and 4 miles offshore. It wraps around the tip of the South Fork, starting at Shagwong Point on the North Shore of the fork, and ending just east of Ditch Plains to the south.

These close-to-shore waters are polluted from runoff and plastic castoffs from household trash and the fishing industry.

The Bird Conservation Area program was launched in 1997 to protect areas that offer important habitats to New York’s birds, on land, around inland waters and along the coasts. According to New York’s Environmental Conservation law, the state may establish a BCA if it is a "concentration site" for waterfowl, pelagic birds (those that spend most of their lives at sea and come on shore to breed, such as shearwaters and terns), shore birds, wading birds or migratory birds. Sites that support a species at risk are also eligible.

The Montauk Point shoals will be the 60th bird conservation area in the state and the seventh on Long Island; the others protect South Shore tidal wetlands and parts of the  Caumsett Preserve, Nissequogue River State Park, the Peconic River headwaters, David A. Sarnoff Pine Barrens Preserve and Napeague and Hither Hills State Parks.