July 16, 2001

Out on the Edge

Who would disagree with the statement that a degree of isolation greatly enhances the wildlife watching experience? Put differently, who would agree with the idea that crowds and traffic make the outdoors fun?

Few issues are as central to the idea of wildlife watching as communion with nature and the ability to peer into the natural world, minimally impacting the bird, the elk, or the damselfly perched on the tip of a twig. On the other hand, the twin questions of "How much solitude is enough?" and "How much impact is too much?" are things that differ for each person. Some people find communion seated with fellow birders on wooden rafters at High Island; others don’t feel truly alone unless they’re hiking alone across the Outback. The same variation exists when people examine the issue of impact–is it a wildlife watching experience when you watch volunteers feed a wild elk herd from a tractor, or is it only wild when you have to watch the elk from a mile’s distance through a spotting scope?

Nature tourism works best when it accommodates these extremes, and everything in between. Our recent visit to coastal Virginia suggests that this most recent member of the statewide nature trail sorority superbly illustrates the multiple variations in solitude and degrees of wildness. Sponsored by the state’s Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, and funded in part by the Virginia Department of Transportation, this wildlife trail offers much.

The Eastern Shore of Virginia has long been an isolated, economically depressed region–and small wonder: it hangs down at the end of a long peninsula, accessible from the north via Maryland and from the south via tollway. For people visiting from the mainland, any number of closer venues exist to siphon off travelers before they ever reach Virginia. Spectacular wildlife watching in Maryland begins just after you cross onto the Delmarva Peninsula, at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. For those who do make it into Virginia, Chincoteague has long been a guaranteed draw for beachgoers, nature tourists, and fans of the island’s feral horse herd. Yet little incentive has ever existed to draw them farther south.

The southern access to the Eastern Shore is likewise complicated by the tollway. Every time you visit the shore it costs $20 round-trip. Virginia Beach thus serves as the default destination for people seeking coastal sun.

Hemmed in at the top and bottlenecked at the bottom, it would seem that prospects for this part of the state are poor until you realize that these "barriers" are largely psychological. From Chincoteague, the far southern tip of the shore is less than an hour and a half away. Taxing entrants from the south is more of a practical issue, but the great population centers on the East Coast are not south of the Virginia’s eastern shore, they are to its north. Nor is it likely that the bridge will forever operate on a fee basis.

Reverting then to the issues of solitude and isolation, of natural versus impacted by woman, the Eastern Shore has evolved into a venue that offers varying shades of all these qualities. The Nature Conservancy has spoken with its purse and purchased outright the barrier islands offshore. A wilder and more isolated coastal experience cannot be found in the lower forty-eight, with the possible exception of the Padre Island National Seashore in Texas. Birding by kayak amidst this maze of barrier island habitat must certainly rank as one of the great wildlife watching experiences possible.

Between the popularized mass-tourism nature experience at Chincoteague and the woman-against-the-elements immersion experience at the southern end of the Eastern Shore, lie innumerable gradations. Towns such as Cape Charles have several establishments that cater specifically to nature tourists; Northampton County offers roadway after roadway that finishes in salt marsh habitat; an annual birding festival mixes the wildness of migration and the tameness of organized activities; the interpretive center at Eastern Shore National Wildlife Refuge lets you learn as you view; banding at Kiptopeke makes wild things un-wild for the briefest of moments…

To us, the beauty of Virginia’s eastern shore goes far beyond the habitat and wildlife that make up the "attraction," and extends to the varieties of experience, the degrees of wildness, the shades of nature that, like a strand littered with the treasures of a sandollar tide, we have only to stop and observe.

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