Save Duxbury Beach is advocating for a return to a balance between responsible recreation (beach goers), active conservation (protecting plovers and terns) and preservation (preserving barrier beach from erosion due to storms, thus protecting the Duxbury coastline).

 The Duxbury Beach Reservation in coordination with MassWildlife's Coastal Waterbird Office has significantly elevated its monitoring program for piping plovers and least terns beyond basic state & federal requirements. Historically, the organization relied on local high school students to observe and document avian activity on the beach. In recent years, however, it has shifted to hiring more highly qualified personnel, typically college students or recent graduates pursuing or holding degrees in wildlife biology, environmental science, or related fields—often with preferences for those with prior fieldwork experience in avian monitoring.  Job postings for shorebird monitors emphasize candidates working toward or possessing a bachelor's degree (and sometimes advanced coursework), along with skills in data collection, public interaction, and adherence to the Habitat Conservation Plan protocols. This professionalization has transformed the Reservation into a  practical laboratory for aspiring coastal wildlife managers and conservation professionals.  This enhanced staffing contributes to more rigorous data gathering and higher compliance with conservation measures, it has also led to more intensive on-site presence, enforcement of restrictions, and unnecessary management practices that prioritizing bird training and research objectives over recreational access.

Continued seasonal over sand vehicle (OSV) closures will lead to further decreased sticker revenue for the Town of Duxbury. This reduction in revenue  could ultimately result in the Town’s residents’ decision to not renew their annual lease of the beach, something Save Duxbury Beach believes would be detrimental to the preservation of the barrier beach that protects the Duxbury coastline and all the commercial and residential properties along it. 

 Every summer, sections of Duxbury Beach close to protect nesting Least Terns. We support responsible wildlife management — but we believe the data now justifies asking the state to formally revisit this species' listing under the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act (MESA).

Least Terns are listed as a Species of Special Concern under MESA — the least restrictive of the Act's three protected categories (Special Concern, Threatened, Endangered), one step below Threatened and two below Endangered.1 They are not listed at all under the federal Endangered Species Act (only the inland "interior" subspecies, found along Mississippi River tributaries, has ever carried federal protection — and that population was fully delisted in 2021 after recovering from under 2,000 to more than 18,000 birds).2

Statewide, Least Tern numbers have climbed for decades:

• 1974–1979: average of 1,300 nesting pairs statewide3
• 2013: 3,977 pairs statewide4
• 2023: 3,698 pairs statewide
• 2024: 4,318 pairs statewide — a 16.8% increase in a single year 5

Duxbury Beach has driven a meaningful share of that growth:

• Historically, Duxbury Beach supported fewer than 300 pairs in a typical year6
• 2021: a record 473 pairs6
• 2023: 353 pairs, across six separate colonies7
• 2024: 385 pairs — making Duxbury Beach the second-largest Least Tern colony site in Massachusetts, behind only Norton Point in Edgartown 5

Least Terns nest in colonies and defend those nests aggressively. Both parents guard the nest and a surrounding buffer of roughly 3–10 feet, launching repeated attack flights at intruders, calling loudly, and defecating on anyone who gets too close.8 In practice, this means casual beachgoers are driven off well before any physical contact or nest disturbance occurs — a sharp contrast to ground-nesting species with less confrontational defense behavior.

Beach closures and buffer zones on Duxbury Beach are implemented under MESA's "take" protections for Special Concern species. They are administered by the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries & Wildlife's Natural Heritage & Endangered Species Program (MassWildlife), working with Mass Audubon's Coastal Waterbird Program, which conducts the season-long monitoring that generates the population counts above.

MESA requires the state's list of protected species to be formally reviewed at least once every five years.9 Given a statewide population that has more than tripled since the 1970s, a record-setting local colony, and nest-defense behavior that already limits human contact without regulatory intervention, we believe Least Terns warrant a formal re-examination as part of that review — and that current closure policy on Duxbury Beach should be reassessed in light of the trend.

1. 321 CMR 10.90, Massachusetts List of Endangered, Threatened, and Special Concern Species. ↩
    
2. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds, Least Tern Overview. ↩
    
3. Mass Audubon, Breeding Bird Atlas, Find a Bird: Least Tern (BBA1). ↩
    
4. MassWildlife, Inventory of Terns, Laughing Gulls, and Black Skimmers Nesting in Massachusetts in 2013. ↩
    
5. MassWildlife, Inventory of Terns, Laughing Gulls, and Black Skimmers Nesting in Massachusetts in 2024 (Feb. 2025). ↩ ↩2
    
6. Duxbury Beach Reservation, Coastal Ecology Program Updates (2021). ↩ ↩2
    
7. Town of Duxbury Beach Operations, Beach Update — 7/28/2023. ↩
    
8. Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds, Least Tern Life History. ↩
    
9. Massachusetts Endangered Species Act, M.G.L. c. 131A. ↩