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Kiteboarding Banned at Padre Island National Seashore

Here is the link to the article in Outside magazine

http://outside.away.com/outside/news/20031229_1.html

Nice Job, chumps.

"Superintendent Jock Whitworth cited concern over the "extreme" nature of kiteboarding as the primary reason for the ban. "Mostly it's the safety aspect," Whitworth told the Caller-Times. His comment was in reference to the kiteboarding death of local expert Peter Nordby. "


Here's some great tips to avoid The Man's attention:

* Repeat after me - "I wouldn't call kiteboarding an 'extreme sport'. It is rather quiet and relaxing. The dangerous part is the drive to the beach!"

* Ditto - "Kiteboarding didn't kill Peter Nordby! He was horribly depressed, and didn't have a gun or a sharp stick handy. The kite just happened to be the closest thing"

* "If it weren't safe, I'd wear a helmet!"

* One more - "Did you know that there have been no deaths attributed to kiteboarders who fly foils? Can't get much safer than that!"

Sure, telling the ladies at the watering hole that you look death in the face, and poke him in his empty eye-sockets every time you fly your kite might get you some attention. But it doesn't exactly do wonderful things for beach access.


"Loose Lips Sink Ships"

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This whole thing has been hashed through on a few different threads already, here's the first one:

phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2298085

Basically the important information is that this does not include the South Padre area, you can still kite there. Check out the thread for more details.

I also post a topic about this a few days ago, and I was also thinking that South Padre was banned but like rick explained it seems that the island it's quite large so it's only phorbiden to kite in the National Park not in all the Island check my post about it it shows pics also

This is really bad news. Saying that kiteboarding is a threat to nesting birds is completely speculation. No one knows whether or not kites scare birds more than airplanes or any other "thing". Birds are nervous by nature. Remember that a kite is WAY bigger than a preditory bird. They do not resemble each other in the air.
The problem that we will be facing is that every ranger in the US will decide whether or not they should ban kiteboarding based on this and the other examples we will soon see. I can see spots from Oregon to Florida being closed by this. A psuedo-environmental action like this is super hard to defend against. It will be like, "beach closed to kiteboarding until you can prove it's safe for birds". Not one bird will be killed, but kiteboarding still banned.
I'm not going to start my rant about rangers here but, rangers, I'm watching you

So much for the land of the free...

You guys might want to consider moving to Australia.

hello_world wrote:This is really bad news. Saying that kiteboarding is a threat to nesting birds is completely speculation. No one knows whether or not kites scare birds more than airplanes or any other "thing". Birds are nervous by nature. Remember that a kite is WAY bigger than a preditory bird. They do not resemble each other in the air.
The problem that we will be facing is that every ranger in the US will decide whether or not they should ban kiteboarding based on this and the other examples we will soon see. I can see spots from Oregon to Florida being closed by this. A psuedo-environmental action like this is super hard to defend against. It will be like, "beach closed to kiteboarding until you can prove it's safe for birds". Not one bird will be killed, but kiteboarding still banned.
I'm not going to start my rant about rangers here but, rangers, I'm watching you

I took my Trainer kite down to the park the other day. The Geese there that usually aren't scared of anything, made a quick depart after I launched the kite. The trainer was 2m, so it would be interesting if a bigger kite made less of a difference (my guess is no.)

This is a vintage thread...almost 10 years. Any update on the status of kiting in at Padre Island National Seashore. Still banned? Specifically the ocean side of Bird Island?

Threw me out the last time I put up a kite there.
But there is tons of other beachfront to kite on.
From Mustang Island State Park Jetty to the Jetty at Port A.
From the new JP Luby Jetty north to Mustang Island State Park.
At Mustang Island State Park.
All south of JP Luby to the National Seashore.

Sounds like it's not so bad news.

Extreme sport... y'all must get good winds there my non-sporty, danger-averse, safety-nagging in-laws saw me kiting once and said "Oh, what a nice peaceful hobby."