For your next spring getaways, there is no need to head to Dumet Island.
Like every year since 2020, this eight-hectare piece of land located off the coast of the town of Piriac-sur-Mer (Loire-Atlantique) is prohibited from public access by prefectural decree.
In force since March 1, the ban on docking and disembarkation will end on July 31, 2024, one month more than in 2023. Objective of the measure: preserve the Nature 2000 classified site from any human presence during the bird breeding period.
Inhabited until 1986, the only maritime island of Loire-Atlantique is today abandoned to protected species of birds (great crested cormorant, bank swallow, etc.), but also to dragonflies (odonates) and butterflies (lepidoptera) .
“
The site was once renowned for the nesting of large colonies of Sandwich and Common Terns
,” we can read on the department’s website.
But these shy birds completely disappeared in the 1970s. The brown and silver gulls, little frightened by human presence and attracted by the space vacated by the terns, settled in large numbers.
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Annual ban until 2026?
Due to its strategic location between the mouths of the Loire and the Vilaine, the island has been the scene of numerous landings and battles.
The best known of them, the Battle of the Cardinals in 1759, opposed the French and the English between the island of Hoëdic, Pointe du Croisic and Dumet Island.
The square fort, built in 1846 to defend against the British navy, is one of the rare vestiges of its military past.
Stay on marked paths for pedestrians, do not take your dog (even on a leash), do not take anything from the island (plants, animals, pebbles)... So many rules to follow to minimize the impact of your presence on the premises.
The annual closure of the island could be extended until 2026, when “
an assessment and scientific evaluation of the implementation of the decree will be carried out
”, underlines the prefecture.
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