What you say is absolutely true. They could have, however, easily extended the colony in that one small area, just to the north of the highest concentration of skimmer nests and chicks. They chose instead to deal with a lot more than was somewhat of a problem and thus severely limit what had been some great opportunities.

As and aside, there was a single chick being brooded by an adult right under the newly positioned rope. The mother soon left it and it sat looking very weak for about two hours. Then it started wandering to the northern end of the colony where it was picked up by a researcher and brought somewhere for some reason. I arrived when the researched came back to the colony holding the chick. Then he walked at full speed about 40 yards into the colony sending dozens of skimmer chicks running for their lives. These chicks were at least momentarily exposed to predation as all of the adult birds took flight at the approach of the intruder.

As far as I understand that is pretty much what photographers are not supposed to do…..