Piping plovers closing beaches

The NY Times writes about the efforts to help the piping plover, an endangered species that nests on beaches. It represents a classic human-species conflict since helping the bird requires closing some beaches. But have people learned, slowly, that sometimes these things happen?

Efforts to protect the birds have led to closed beaches, canceled fireworks, lawsuits, warnings to cat owners and shelters to not release the animals near the shoreline and closed trails for all-terrain vehicles.

“When I first started this job almost 20 years ago it was really heated,” said Susi von Oettingen, an endangered species specialist with the federal Fish and Wildlife Service.

Maybe.