DesertRose
Safari Chick & Supporting Sponsor
We spent Saturday with a Safari Club group called Hunters Who Care, helping to clean up trash on various Altar Valley ranches (between the Baboquivari Mts and the Sierrita & Cerro Colorado Mts) - mostly from migrants, and from hunters (or rather, slobs-with-guns -- not real hunters). Here's a shot that relates the scope of the problem:
We had to create a road to get a few pickups to this site, to take about 100 big bags of trash out. This area is in a saddle between two big hills, away from any roads. It's a stopover point for migrants on foot.
The problem was that user-created roads are like bait for ATVers - you'd think they think there's a 12-pack of Bud at the end of each one. Sure enough, just as we were finishing up, three rather WIDE-bodied folks including their pudgy kid came right up the side of the hill on their 3 ATVs.
We stayed behind and disguised/closed the road at Game & Fish's request.
Game & Fish and lots of hunter friends we know are all getting sick of ATVs driving off roads, up washes, scaring off game, wrecking habitat, and giving radical environmental groups plenty of ammo to start lobbying for more restrictions on backcountry driving of all kinds - and it's those of us who are careful users who will suffer most.
So there's a real need for ethical-minded 4x4 enthusiasts to help support Game & Fish in an up-and-coming campaign to educate ATV and 4x4 users about the illegality of driving off-road and up washes.
Stay tuned.
Roseann
We had to create a road to get a few pickups to this site, to take about 100 big bags of trash out. This area is in a saddle between two big hills, away from any roads. It's a stopover point for migrants on foot.
The problem was that user-created roads are like bait for ATVers - you'd think they think there's a 12-pack of Bud at the end of each one. Sure enough, just as we were finishing up, three rather WIDE-bodied folks including their pudgy kid came right up the side of the hill on their 3 ATVs.
We stayed behind and disguised/closed the road at Game & Fish's request.
Game & Fish and lots of hunter friends we know are all getting sick of ATVs driving off roads, up washes, scaring off game, wrecking habitat, and giving radical environmental groups plenty of ammo to start lobbying for more restrictions on backcountry driving of all kinds - and it's those of us who are careful users who will suffer most.
So there's a real need for ethical-minded 4x4 enthusiasts to help support Game & Fish in an up-and-coming campaign to educate ATV and 4x4 users about the illegality of driving off-road and up washes.
Stay tuned.
Roseann