You Can Drive On The Beach Again At The ‘Birthplace’ Of Dune Buggy Culture

It’s summertime in Southern California and that means you start to see a lot more drop tops and classic cars on the road. Some of my favorite summertime classics to spot are the oh-so-retro classic dune buggies, whose inception took place right near Southern California in the sand dunes of Baja Mexico and the central coast town of Pismo Beach. The latter place, Pismo Beach, California, is the town closest to the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area (SVRA), and it is commonly known as the birthplace of dune buggy culture. 

Located about 150 miles north of Los Angeles, it’s the only state park where visitors can legally drive on the beach and on the park’s coastal sand dunes, but it was shut down earlier this spring to protect the habitat of the endangered snowy plover bird. We covered a similar instance earlier this year when 2,200-miles of off-road trails in the Mojave Desert were shut down in order to preserve an endangered keystone species, but those trails are still shut down, unlike the dunes.

Late last month, the Oceano Dunes SVRA reopened to vehicle day use and camping, with fenced-off and posted closure areas that preserve the habitat of the endangered native shorebirds, whose nesting season is currently underway.

The iconic Pismo dunes were closed down on April 14 when the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California ruled in favor of the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) that the Oceano Dunes District – Pismo needed to complete a Habitat Conservation Plan and receive an Incidental Take Permit before camping or off-roading could resume. According to Fox 26 News, “A federal court ruled that the California Department of Parks and Recreation violated the Endangered Species Act by allowing motorized vehicle use that harms imperiled shorebirds at the Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area, and the decision restricts that use.”

The snowy plover is the endangered species that spurred the shutdown: they are covered by the Endangered Species Act, which prohibits killing or harming protected species without authorization from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Logan K. Carter/ Jalopnik

The Center for Biological Diversity said state park officials began developing a habitat conservation plan in the early 2000s to secure an Endangered Species Act permit to incidentally “take” protected wildlife, but the plan was never completed. The shutdown forced state park officials to finally complete this process in 2026.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “The term ‘take’ means to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage in any such conduct; may include significant habitat modification or degradation if it kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns including breeding, feeding, or sheltering.” The Oceano Dunes SVRA has records on file with State Parks that document many incidents in which snowy plovers have been killed and harmed by vehicle activity, but now the park at least has the appropriate permits that make ‘incidental takes’ of protected wildlife like the snowy plover legal.