Solution to trespassers has boaters squawking
Orange County may create zone to keep watercraft away from Bird Island
Despite boater objections, Orange County may decide today to create a “vessel-exclusion zone” to keep watercraft away from an Audubon-owned island in Lake Butler, a measure designed to protect nesting birds and discourage rowdy weekend partiers.
“It’s a party-hardy location with much alcohol flowing,” said Charles Lee, director of advocacy for Audubon of Florida.
Audubon endorsed the strategy, describing it as a “logical first step” to make the 10-acre spot known as Bird Island or Egret Island, more inviting to its intended residents. Decades ago, osprey and their avian cousins once numbered in the thousands on the island.
But many have flown the coop, Lee said, chased away
by revelers, some of whom moor vessels in the island’s shallows, crank up booming sound systems and frolic most weekends in the cool water, traipsing onto the island past Audubon’s “no trespassing” signs.
While the ordinance describes the zone “in the interest of public health, safety, and welfare,” boaters argue the strategy — which would classify about three-quarters of an acre as a “swim area” and force vessels to anchor 80 feet from the island — will pose more risks.
All boaters, young or old, strong or feeble, will have to brave deep-water swims to reach the shallows, considered public land.
“They’re trying to pass this off as some kind of safety ordinance, which is, excuse my French, bullshit,” said Rick Taylor, 62, who manages the Bird Island, Butler Chain Of Lakes’ Facebook page. “You’d have to be a total idiot to think that putting people in deeper water and closer to the high speed area, which is only
100 feet away, is somehow going to be safer than what they’re doing now.”’
Taylor said the shallows — everything below the island’s high water line — are open to all, just as the middle of the lake is.
He said most people visiting the shallows are relaxing with friends, enjoying public waters and clean up after themselves.
State law allows the public access and people will still go there, he said.
“This will just make it more of a hassle,” said Taylor, who called on boaters to speak up at the commission meeting.
Mary Oakes, a lakeshore resident since 1983, doesn’t care for the weekend ruckus but she cares less for the proposed change.
She sometimes takes a boat out on a weeknight and anchors in the shallows to watch the sunset.
Oakes said she would prefer that marine patrols issue citations and forbid offenders from launching at public ramps.
“Instead they’re shutting down something we should be able to enjoy,” she said.
The property was dedicated by the state to the Florida Audubon in June 1958 to be used for “wildlife sanctuary purpose.”
“Any person who sets foot on the island is a trespasser,” Lee said. “Unfortunately, there is a current belief by some of the people who have been objecting to these proposed rules that they are entitled to continue doing what they have historically done illegally.”
He said many trespassers treat the island like a toilet but large crowds often thwart law enforcement efforts to nab them.
By clearing the shallows of boats, the exclusion zone will make it easier for marine patrols to identify offenders, Lee said.
The exclusion zone, proposed as an amendment to the county’s Boats and Water Safety Code, also earned the backing of the Windermere Town Council, which sent a letter to commissioners urging them to discount “the voices of a very few” protesting the strategy.
“We understand this may not entirely correct the issue, but it will definitely be a step in the right direction,” the letter read.
It also noted, “Alarmingly, there have been six boating-related fatalities in the last four years on the Butler Chain of Lakes.”
In 2019, Nickaloy Dunstan Thomas, 25, was killed near Bird Island when he was struck by the propeller of a boat.
Audubon’s Lee said vessels crowding the island’s shallows include fast, loud and rented personal watercraft, better known by brand names like Kawasaki’s Jet Ski and Yamaha’s WaveRunner. Many set sail from county-owned boat ramps — on Lake Down and at R.D. Keene Park.
They ride through the chain of lakes and canals past Shaquille O’Neal’s former Isleworth mansion to get to the island.
But long before the boat ramps were installed, 15,000 wading birds of various species nested in the island’s cypress trees, according to observations noted in 1940 by John Storer, a past president of Florida Audubon and wildlife photographer known for filming birds in flight.
Lee said the island’s quieter, thicket-covered side offers hope for the island’s return as a sanctuary.
Its tall cypress trees are home to a colony of Brown Pelicans, described by allaboutbirds.org as a “comically elegant bird with an oversized bill, sinuous neck, and big, dark body.” Lee said the species’ nesting on a site in a freshwater lake in Florida’s interior is highly unusual.