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January 14, 2008
CUYAMA PEAK: CERTIFIED 99% MICROTRASH FREE!
ForestWatch
Volunteers Remove More Than 350 Pounds of Small Trash Bits From
Condor Habitat in Santa Barbara County
On Saturday,
January 12th, ForestWatch volunteers traveled through red rock
canyons and maneuvered washed-out roads on their way to Cuyama
Peak, where they removed virtually all microtrash from the area.
With more than 351 pounds of microtrash cleaned up, the site no
longer poses a serious threat to endangered California condors.
Cuyama Peak
is in the backcountry of the Cuyama Valley in Santa Barbara
County, on the north side of the Dick Smith Wilderness in the
Los Padres National Forest. It's in prime condor habitat,
located between the Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge, an
important foraging area for the condor to the north, and the
Sierra Madre Ridge, an important flyway for the condor to the
south. The peak is also the site of a historical 1930s fire
lookout tower, which has fallen into disarray and in the process
contributed to microtrash accumulation on the peak via broken
window glass. Due to this accumulation and years of target
shooting on the peak, which left broken beer bottles, bottle
caps, and bullet casings, in addition to hoards of other “macrotrash,”
the site was, in a word, a mess.
A radiograph showing microtrash
ingested by a condor.
Photo courtesy USFWS.
For this
event we were fortunate to enlist the help of the Forest
Service, which provided gloves, trash pickers, trash bags, a
truck for packing out the trash, and access to the closed area
around Cuyama Peak (the area is currently closed to the public
because last year's Zaca Fire burned near here).
We recruited
a total of 15 enthusiastic volunteers on the peak for an
afternoon of microtrash removal, and together we were able to
clean up the entire Cuyama Peak in just three hours of work! Our
volunteers picked up over 350 pounds of microtrash from around
and beneath
 the
tower, along the road, and on the steep sides of the peak; dug
old bottles, broken pieces of the tower and adjacent building,
and old car batteries out of the brush; and cleaned the tower's
entire stairway and cat way of broken glass so that it doesn't
fall down and become microtrash at a future date.
Pound for
pound this was by far the most successful of ForestWatch's
microtrash efforts. But it was also the most successful and
enjoyable of our events in terms of weather. Whereas our
previous efforts had been plagued by heat or rain, this last
cleanup was clear and sunny, and afforded magnificent views all
the way to the Southern Sierra and the Channel Islands. The only
obstacles we had to deal with the entire day were roads that had
been washed out in the storms from a few weeks back, but those
provided some extra fun and adventure for the morning. And
despite being delayed an hour by these crossings, we still were
able to get enough time in to cleanup the entire site.
Thank you
all who participated in making this such a successful event! If
you'd like to help protect the Condor and participate in future
microtrash cleanups, submit our
volunteer form.
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