ForestWatch Volunteers Clean Up Illegal Shooting Area at Middle Sespe Trailhead

LPFW Teams With CSUCI Students to Give the Middle Sespe Some TLC

A problem facing much of the Los Padres National Forest is playing out at the Middle Sespe Trailhead about 20 minutes outside of Ojai along Highway 33, in the heart of the forest.

Middle Sespe Trailhead, known as Beaver Camp in a past life, has seen its fair share of trash and misuse over the years, but today it faces a new threat as target shooters who recently frequented the Cherry Creek unauthorized shooting area up the road now pull off early and indulge in bad behavior here. Unlike the other national forests of southern California which are closed to target shooting, Los Padres National Forest allows "plinking" throughout the forest and has only closed a few isolated areas (such as Cherry Creek) due to misuse.

Unfortunately the areas of misuse are only multiplying and the irresponsible actions of a few target shooters have now resulted in the trashing of yet another beautiful backcountry site - Middle Sespe Trailhead. The area is now littered with shotgun shells, bullet casings, broken bottles, and obliterated clay pigeons, and all this trash returns as fast as we can get out there to clean it up. It is an unsustainable solution to a problem that requires attention by the Forest Service immediately.

In hopes of keeping the situation from getting too insurmountable, ForestWatch has organized two recent cleanups of the area. First was a motivated group of Patagonia employees who ventured out on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, a company service day. The group of twelve pulled out hundreds of pounds of trash in a morning’s worth of work.

Another group followed in mid-February, this time a lively bunch of environmental science students from Cal State Channel Islands. The group of 17 cleaned up throughout the morning and then enjoyed a hike along Sespe Creek in the afternoon as their reward.

ForestWatch will continue to monitor the problem of illegal target shooting, and the trash it leaves behind, at places like Cherry Creek and Middle Sespe. We'll also continue to put pressure on the Forest Service to institute a forest-wide ban on target shooting. Stay tuned!