On Saturday, June 29, a group of twenty volunteers braved the heat to spend their morning removing microtrash from an old illegal target shooting site in and around the Gibraltar Road trailhead for West Fork Cold Spring Trail. Altogether they removed over 160 pounds of microtrash in just a couple of hours.
Volunteers came from as far away as Chatsworth to help clean up this popular trail in the Santa Ynez Mountains just north of Santa Barbara. As the upper trailhead was used as a target shooting site for decades, the area was still covered in broken glass and pieces of other targets. The first several hundred feet of the trail was also lined with broken glass.
Most of the lead ammunition and bullet fragments that volunteers found at this single site in just two hours.
More concerning was the lead ammunition that has accumulated at the site over the years. While surveying the area before the cleanup, we found several piles of lead bullets that had washed down into a few large ruts from a hillside next to the trailhead. We also found hundreds of bullets and bullet fragments along the trail.
Upon arriving, volunteers received a safety talk, loaded up on cleanup supplies and snacks, and set out to work primarily on broken glass and lead bullets. After just a couple of hours, the team had collected over 160 pounds of trash—including 30 pounds of lead bullets. We have plans for additional cleanups at the site to continue removing the lead and other microtrash scattered around the area.
After the cleanup, the group went on a naturalist-led hike down West Fork Cold Spring Trail to learn about chaparral, native plants, and fire ecology. A portion of the area burned in both the 2009 Jesusita Fire and 2017 Thomas Fire, which provided an unique look at post-fire chaparral recovery, fire followers, and invasive plants.
Thank you to the wonderful volunteers who spent their Saturday morning making this local trail safer for people, pets, and wildlife. And thank you to the Coastal Fund for sponsoring this and other cleanup efforts in the Santa Barbara Frontcountry.
Scroll through the slideshow below to see more photos from the cleanup:
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About Bryant Baker
Bryant is the Director of Conservation & Research for Los Padres ForestWatch, where he manages scientific, technical, and volunteer projects. He is also a naturalist and photographer, spending most of his free time hiking the rugged public lands of the Central Coast region with his dog.
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