State Will Ban Off-Roaders in Borrego Park
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BORREGO SPRINGS — State park rangers said they intend to ban off-road vehicles in the Anza Borrego Desert State Park because of damage to the ecosystem.
Off-roaders make up about one-quarter of the park’s 1 million visitors annually, Chief Ranger Ken Smith said Wednesday, but they have destroyed animal habitat and tender desert flora, damaged sensitive mud flats and archeological sites, contributed to the death of bighorn lambs, and caused so many headaches to park rangers that they are now unwelcome and will have to go elsewhere.
Smith said the ban does not preclude persons from operating licensed, “street-legal” vehicles--including four-wheel-drive trucks and cars and motorcycles--on the 500 miles of marked dirt roads in the sprawling, 600,000-acre park in eastern San Diego County, but rangers will begin issuing misdemeanor citations to the operators of unlicensed vehicles on Sept. 1.
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