Assabet River NWR Final CCP - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Eastern Massachusetts National Wildlife Refuge Complex Draft CCP/EA November 26, 2003
Priority Public Uses
Analysis of Existing Conditions and Need for Further
Analysis
Several respondents question CCP visitor estimates and request better calculations, one
respondent suggesting that based on personal experience the estimate of 70,000 people per
year visiting Oxbow is “wildly incorrect. It is probably more like 7,000.”
Numerous respondents request that scientific analysis of wildlife populations take place prior
to any hunting or trapping. One conservation organization suggests that the CCP be driven
entirely by wildlife surveys: “We suggest three overarching management priorities when
considering policies about public use activities: 1. Public uses allowed under the CCP should
be based on the findings of wildlife inventory and habitat management step-down plans.
Public use plans should be based on wildlife inventory and habitat management plans; 2. The
Service should monitor and adjust allowed public uses based on impacts to wildlife and
habitat during the drafting/revision of step-down plans; 3. Public use should be coordinated
among partner organizations with land holdings in the vicinity of refuges.”
Several respondents argue that ongoing monitoring will be critical to management of
wildlife-dependent recreation, typically: “The proposed additional monitoring projects in
Alternative B for all three refuges must include at least that level of detail about how the
monitoring and evaluation will be carried out. For example: The CCP states on pages 2-29,
2-68, and 2-95 that the Visitor Services Plans, to be completed by 2007, for Assabet River,
Great Meadows, and Oxbow Refuges would include a monitoring program to evaluate the
intensity and potential impacts of all the wildlife-dependent public uses on the refuges. What
data have you collected to date on this issue and what has your analysis of the results shown?
What steps are now being taken or will be taken until 2007 when the monitoring program is
in place to ensure that current management of wildlife-dependent uses is not having an
adverse effect on the resources?”
General Management Direction
Respondents offer a number of suggestions for general management direction of the Refuge
Complex relating to priority public uses, typically defining the extent to which they believe
various recreational activities should be permitted. Many respondents, for example, argue
that the refuge should be “open to the public,” by which they typically mean members of the
public who undertake non-motorized recreation such as picnicking and jogging. For many,
this is their defining test of the value of the refuge and a natural consequence of it being
public land, e.g., since we pay taxes we get to use it.
For a few respondents, general access to the refuge is part payback for the original
government acquisition of the land. For many more, there is a significant level of anger at the
prospect of restriction of passive uses, e.g., “[Great Meadows] has been used with great
respect and affection by the local public for well over the thirty years that we’ve lived here. I
Summary of Comments 13