SCARBOROUGH – Implementation of recommendations by Scarborough’s Canine and Education Enforcement Committee will have to wait until a new council is seated following the November elections, but the consensus is that the first year of new dog-access rules to the town’s beaches went fairly well.

According to town officials, more federally endangered piping plover shorebirds successfully nested and hatched chicks than in recent memory, and volunteer beach monitors worked hard to educate people about the new rules regarding dogs on the beach.

At a recent meeting, William Somers, a member of the committee, who is also running for a seat on the Town Council this fall, praised the work of Scarborough’s new beach monitoring coordinator, Ryan Wynne, and said he’d done “an exemplary job in Year 1.”

Following the killing of a piping plover chick by a dog on a Scarborough beach in July 2013, the town went through a highly contentious and emotional process to create a set of regulations designed to better protect the piping plover, while also keeping as much of the traditional off-leash beach time as possible.

According to Wynne, a number of civil summonses were issued to dog owners this summer on Scarborough beaches, but overall, he said, most people were understanding about the new rules and the importance of protecting the nesting plovers.

The recommendations released by the Canine and Education Enforcement Committee on Sept. 3 include better training for volunteer beach monitors, including the creation of a code of conduct for how they approach dog owners and handle potentially volatile situations.

Somers also said the signs announcing the new rules could be made more welcoming and more clear, especially about the off-season times, when dogs must be leashed for two hours in the afternoon in order to allow non-dog walkers time to enjoy the beach.

In addition, the committee is also recommending that the town seek to drop Ferry Beach as a piping plover habitat, since no pairs have nested on that beach, near the mouth of the Scarborough River, in many years.

Somers also said the town should review the other areas that were restricted this past summer as essential habitat, since the plovers “thrived well outside the designated protected areas.” And, he said, the state already provides “effective protection” for the plovers at Higgins Beach.

As part of its charge from the Town Council, the Canine Education and Enforcement Committee was also asked to look at the possibility of creating dog parks and instituting a tag program that would require dog owners to sign off that they understood and would abide by the new beach access rules.

Somers said the committee came to the conclusion that neither a dog park nor a tag program should be pursued at this time.

He said there is “no appetite” in town to build and maintain a dog park, which he said could cost between $50,000 and $75,000 per year to construct and keep operational.

Somers also said the only community the committee could find that had tried a tag program was the city of Boulder, Colo., which abandoned the program after a four-year period of high costs and little effectiveness.

“We believe the town’s resources could be better used on educational efforts,” he said.

Overall, the committee is recommending that the current beach rules be continued for at least another two to three years before any major changes are made.

“I was very impressed with this group. They were given a big task and handled it well,” said Councilor Katherine St. Clair, who was the liaison to the canine committee.