Vehicle tours OK’d for Cumberland Island

SAVANNAH —- The National Park Service has cleared a final hurdle to giving motor tours on Cumberland Island, where federal protections have long required most visitors to hike or bike in a wilderness area larger than Manhattan.

Dennis Parsons, chief park ranger for the 15-mile island off Georgia’s coast, said Friday his staff is working on the final details for vehicle tours after Park Service administrators signed off on a study showing the tours would pose little threat to Cumberland’s protected wilderness and wildlife species.

That means the tours can start rolling as soon as Cumberland Island gets funding for extra staff and to buy tour vehicles —- likely trolley trailers towed by Jeeps capable of handling the island’s rugged and narrow dirt roads. Parsons said that will likely take several months.

About 43,500 people each year visit Cumberland Island, reachable only by boat. But only the hardiest hikers get to see much of the island’s striking mix of untamed maritime forest and luxurious 19th-century getaway homes built by wealthy industrialists. The federal government bought the island in 1972.

Environmentalists battled for years with the Park Service over whether it could legally offer vehicle tours on the island. Congress intervened in 2004 with a law mandating that the Park Service offer motor tours daily.