Date: Sat, 24 May 2003 09:09:42 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: Shore Wars / No Trespassing Question In-Reply-To: <7b.11b230ca.2c004619@aol.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi -- They may well not be legitimate -- but it would have to go to court -- again! About 10 years ago (or perhaps more) the state of Delaware challenged land-owners in court about preventing access to state trust lands (i.e., all lands below mean high water) and the landowners lost. (I knew one of the lawyers involved, who worked with Sea Grant) At this time, shore access was opened at Pickering Beach and Kitt's Hummock. As far as I know, there have been no court cases overturning this, so I assume the relatively recent actions at Kitt's Hummock -- especially he no trespassing through the dunes to the beach at the end of the road -- may not be legal. I do not think this section of dunes is privately owned. The road is also not privately owned but the landowners may have asked for and gotten (legal) no-parking in the area. Obviously going through people's back yards to reach the beach IS trespassing! It might be worth a call to the State Attorney's office to assess the current legal rulings in Delaware on beach/shore access. And if the landowner actions are not legal, that is also the office that needs to deal with it -- not through individual confrontations with landowners! I should reiterate, however, that the public has a legal right to walk along the shoreline below mean high water "for the purposes of fishing, fowling etc." in most of the original 13 states (and many others). This was part of English Common Law when the colonies were first founded, and is part of the state's charters. This is public land or state trust land. This has been the basis of a lot of court cases which have gotten public access to shorelines that private owners tried to make off-limits. (I believe Louisiana is one of the few exceptions (in the east), because its original law was French.) Ironically, this legal standing is also what allows fishermen to use the beach to collect crabs! Gail Mackiernan (formerly Asst. Sea Grant director) Silver Spring, MD on 05/23/2003 11:50 PM, Steve Huy at Gabboon@AOL.COM wrote: > In a message dated 5/23/03 9:53:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time, THBeal@AOL.COM > writes: > >> It >> is plastered with no trespassing / no parking signs. Anybody know if those >> are >> legitimate? >> >> > > If you do not have permission to enter the land from the land owner and it is > not a public access point they are legitimate. > > > ======================================================================= > To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com > with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey > ======================================================================= > ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================