influence — ebbed and flowed. The erosive 

 energy of sea and wind wore down Legged 

 Lump and Royal Shoal islands. The islands 

 disappeared, but the vision of an Audubon 

 sanctuary program lived on. 



: Different 

 pressures, 

 Solutions 



Earth Day 1970 rekindled environmen- 

 tal awareness across the country. 



Market hunters were long gone from the 

 scene by the mid-1970s, but coastal develop- 

 ment was beginning to crowd out nesting 

 habitat. Pollution, the use of pesticides and 

 other human disturbances also threatened 

 resident and migrating bird populations. 



Scientists, however, never lost sight of 

 the need to protect coastal resources that 

 support marine and wildlife. 



"Human disturbance is the number one 

 concern," says James Parnell, a retired 

 University of North Carolina at Wilmington 

 zoology professor. For more than a decade, 

 beginning in the 1970s, Sea Grant funded 

 much of Parnell's benchmark research. "When 

 human disturbances get too much, they leave." 



It was Parnell who first realized the 

 importance of man-made dredge spoil islands 

 that dot the Intracoastal Waterway and the 

 state's estuaries. These islands provide nesting 

 habitats for large colonies of waterbirds that 

 used to nest along once undeveloped beachfront. 



His 1982 work with Audubon focused on 

 Battery Island and Striking Island, near 

 Wilmington. Audubon leased the complex 

 from the state to study bird sanctuary 

 management methods. Parnell and graduate 

 students looked at population dynamics, the 

 birds' reproductive biology and nest site 

 characteristics. They also looked at ways to 

 manipulate the habitat to produce a stable, 

 long-term environment for the birds — from 

 ground-nesting terns to thicket-nesting herons. 



Battery Island/Striking Island pilot 

 projects became part of Audubon's renewed 

 Coastal Island Sanctuary System. In 1989, 

 Walker Golder was appointed manager of the 

 system that now includes 20 islands from 

 Virginia to South Carolina. Four are managed 

 jointly with the N.C. Wildlife Resources 

 Commission. 



Parnell and his graduate students 

 conducted a census of nesting sites from Currituck 

 Sound to the Lockwood Folly Inlet. Their 1990 

 report, "Management of North Carolina's 

 Colonial Waterbirds" (UNC-SG-90-03), 

 provides site-by-site management recommen- 

 dations. With Golder, Parnell produced the 

 "1993 Atlas of Colonial Water birds of North 

 Carolina Estuaries" (UNC-SG-95-02). 



Both of these publications provide 

 baseline data essential for coastal managers 

 today, Parnell says. 



Many of the modern-day Audubon 

 scientists can trace their lineage back to 

 Pearson. Parnell earned his bachelor's and 

 doctoral degrees under North Carolina State 



8 SPRING 2003 



