The homeowners are not being asked to remove the flags because of some anti-American, unpatriotic agenda. In 2009, the residents received many thousands dollars in federal assistance as part of a replenishment project to save their homes from coastal erosion. At that time, the town and property owners entered an agreement to manage the beach to protect endangered shorebirds.

The agreement is still in place. The reason flags, or any aerial display, are disallowed in shorebird habitat is because the nesting adult birds perceive the flags as an avian predator. The parents will leave the nest to protect the chicks from flags, drones, kites, or whatever the aerial threat. When the Plover parents are away from their eggs, nestlings, and chicks is when the little ones are the most vulnerable to actual avian predators such as gulls and Crows. Because the agreement is in place, the flags, or placing any flag in protected shorebird habitat, is in violation of state and federal law.

Love this image of the visual history of the flag found from the Encyclopedia Britannica