If it's Jet Skis vs. osprey, we'll side with osprey.

Sometimes we must find a balance between preserving the earth and ensuring human survival. Sometimes we must sacrifice some of the birds and the blue skies on the alter of civilized advancement. There are some things so crucial to life that we cannot give them up, even for the sake of endangered creatures.

But a Jet Ski isn't one of them. So state environment officials aren't asking for much with their tentative ban on types of personal watercraft - such as Jet Skis and WaveRunners - near Sedge Islands.

Some of New Jersey's last undeveloped barrier islands, the Sedge Islands are home to 27 pairs of osprey, which just about disappeared off the face of the earth in the 1980s because of widespread use of the pesticide DDT. DDT. Preserving this bird still is a delicate matter.

Unfortunately, motorized boats frighten the birds from their nests, leaving their eggs vulnerable to crows and other predators. So officials plan to set up buoys and signs outlining the protected area.

Commercial clam fishermen and crabbers still would be able to work there, and other boats still could travel the deeper waters where they don't bother the birds.

So really, just about the only people affected are those traveling in smaller boats and high-speed personal watercraft, which can navigate the shallow waters and marshes near the birds' nests.

Representatives of the personal watercraft industry are crying foul, saying the ban favors people with larger, more expensive boats over people with smaller, cheaper ones.

But you know what? We can live with that, too.

This isn't a matter of poor, starving refugees being excluded from nature's bounty. We're talking here about people who are rich enough to own a boat, but not quite rich enough to own a boat that won't help wipe out a rare animal.

Nobody needs to ride personal watercraft. And those who want to use these devices don't have to do so at that particular spot.

So take your boat and go somewhere else, or go take up surfing. You'll live through this. The osprey might not.