Defenders of Wildlife and the National Audubon Society are choking off the lifeblood of communities that depend on North Carolina’s Cape Hatteras National Seashore Recreational Area. In 2008, the National Park Service — the federal agency responsible for the popular 70-mile-long world-class sport fishing and tourist destination — caved in to the two environmental groups’ lawsuit claiming human access to the area harms nesting birds. NPS officials signed a consent decree — locals were not given a choice — and began closing huge swaths of the recreation area’s beaches to motorized traffic for bird protection.

Within a year, Cape Hatteras villages — Rodanthe at the north end and everything down North Carolina Highway 12 to Ocracoke at the south — saw their businesses shrivel as longtime customers failed to reappear at the Avon Motel, Froggy Dog Restaurant, Frank & Fran’s tackle shop, Teach’s Lair Marina and John Couch’s Carquest Auto Parts, among many others.