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Fifth graders to world: Stay on designated trails!
Hey! It’s a guest post from Deanna Williams, USFS Wildlife Biologist & Angela Mundt, USFS Wildlife Technician!
This spring, as the skis get put back in the garage and the mountain bikes get dusted off, Boulder Valley 5th graders have a message for local bikers, motorcyclists, and horse riders: Please stay on designated trails! That unmarked path may be tempting, but it might be causing serious damage to the land and our drinking water.
The Boulder Ranger District, of the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest, is enlisting local 5th graders to promote watershed protection, local wildlife conservation, and trail rules/etiquette. Selected artwork from the 2010 Student Wildlife Art Contest will be recognized here at BigGreenBoulder and incorporated into new educational trail signs on the Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest.
Damage from unauthorized trails off the Peak to Peak Highway.
The art contest was inspired during efforts to repair and restore several miles of undesignated trail that was damaging a sensitive streamside area that runs east of the Peak to Peak Highway. Heavy use of these trails damaged plants, disturbed wildlife trying to raise young, and introduced sediment and pollutants into the Boulder Creek watershed.
Fifth graders participating in the contest are designing artwork around 3 themes:
1. The value of streamside areas to humans: Riparian areas—areas located along the banks of streams, rivers or other bodies of water—make up a small, but valuable part of the Colorado landscape. Soil and plants in riparian areas play a critical role in cleaning, storing, and releasing our drinking water. When streamsides are hardened and straightened from trails or roads, water cannot soak in. This can lead to flash flooding and diminished water supply. Flash flooding often strips additional stream bank material, clogging reservoirs and water systems with sediment.
2. The value of streamside areas to wildlife: Along Colorado’s Front Range, you can often recognize riparian zones as ribbons of green in an otherwise dry landscape. These areas provide food, water, and shelter for a higher number of animals, as well as a more types of animals—than surrounding lands. They also provide critical refuge to animals while raising young, or during fires or prolonged droughts.
3. Read the signs before you ride: Enjoy your public lands and help protect streamside areas by following just two important guidelines:
Damage
Rule #1: Avoid creating new routes or expanding existing routes. Undesignated or “social” trails form over time without regard to water, soil, wildlife, or aesthetics. People may feel that they are minimizing their impact by following an unmarked social trail. However, repeated passes on these trails can lead to serious and permanent damage to the land. The Arapaho-Roosevelt has hundreds of miles of authorized recreation trails and roads. Please practice “Tread Lightly!” principles by traveling on designated trails and avoiding streamside areas.
Rule #2: Motor vehicles must stay on numbered forest roads or designated travel routes. Maps that show designated motorized use can be picked up at the Boulder Ranger Station—2140 Yarmouth Ave—or downloaded online [PDF].
For more information on the 2010 Student Wildlife Art Contest, contact Deanna Williams at 303-541-2541, deannawilliams@fs.fed.us or Angela Mundt at 303-541-2545, angelamundt@fs.fed.us.
Deanna Williams’ lifelong commitment to conserving wildlife and their habitats, has taken her from researching small mammals in Alaska, to tracking songbirds in Costa Rica and many places in-between. In the best of both worlds, her 10 years of working for the U.S. Forest Service as a wildlife biologist has enabled her to combine her love of ecology with a passion to share her belief that we protect what we love, love what we know, and know what we are taught.
Angela Mundt is a lifelong advocate of wildlife conservation through education. Beginning in 1996, her work with wildlife took her around the country, from deserts to grasslands to the Front Range. As a middle school science teacher, she brought that experience to the classroom for 5 years. Now, as a U.S. Forest Service wildlife technician and environmental educator, Angela can pursue both of her professional loves–monitoring wildlife in the field and looking for new ways to connect kids to nature.
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[...] rules of the trails, the Boulder Ranger District of the Araphoe-Roosevelt National Forest held an art contest for local fifth-grade students. The winning art will be incorporated into educational trail [...]