ORLEANS, Mass. – Officials trying to protect a threatened bird plan to ban off-road vehicles from a major stretch of a Cape beach for a month.

The threatened piping plovers nest on Nauset Beach, and their eggs are expected to hatch in late June. Orleans officials said that unless predators or storms wipe out the nests, they will shut down the entire seven-mile off-road vehicle access to Nauset’s Outer Beach until late July, when newly hatched plovers learn to fly.

Before then, the chicks scurry around the beach looking for food, and are vulnerable to being hit by off-road vehicles.

Michael Wade of Harwich said he sympathizes with the birds.

“The reason I like going out to Nauset is because you see wildlife, so I guess sacrificing a month of my access to preserve that is worth it,” he said.

But, in an e-mail to the Cape Cod Times, Art McManus of Orleans wrote, “It’s environmentalism run amok.”

It’s against state and federal regulations to harm a piping plover. A prison term and thousands of dollars in fines can result, if convicted, according to Scott Melvin, senior zoologist with the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

Nauset beach, which runs between Orleans and Chatham, attracts more than 1 million people annually. The town of Orleans sells about 6,000 off-road permits annually.

Orleans Park and Beaches Superintendent Paul Fulcher said about 60 off-road vehicle permit holders called Friday, with most wanting to know how the decision was made.

“There’s nothing we can do to change the laws,” Fulcher told The Boston Globe. “The town has no choice in this.”

William Hammatt of Chatham has a family camp on Nauset Beach. If he and others can’t drive, they’ll have to haul food, water, gas tanks and other supplies from their car to a boat, and then into their houses, Hammatt said.

“When you think of 300 trips a day [allowed by vehicle permits] for a month, with three to five people in each vehicle, that’s a lot of people to be inconvenienced for one or two birds,” he said.

Communities in Maine have taken steps to protect the plover.

Ogunquit canceled a fireworks display last summer because it posed a threat to baby birds. Many towns are adopting leash laws to keep dogs from tromping through nesting areas.