Poaching risk for state park shutdowns

The state budget emergency has led the governor to suggest closing most of California's state parks. Henry Coe Park, here in Santa Clara County, is one of the ones at risk, and Supervisor Yeager has proposed a temporary county takeover to keep it open.

One reason to do this is the increased problem of poaching in California. Wildlife is both more plentiful in parks and less wary of hunters, so the parks are targets for poachers. Full staffing by rangers, and the presence of witnesses in the form of park visitors, would be the best way to keep poaching limited.

-Brian

(Also worth adding is the problem of marijuana growers using public lands, an illegal, environmentally destructive, and potentially violent risk that could increase in closed parks.)

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Checking out the Henry Coe Park fire (or trying to)

I went Sunday to Henry Coe State Park, planning to hike out to the areas that had been burnt in the fire last month. Unfortunately, park officials have closed all trails leading into or even along the burnt area. This seems hard to justify - it's hard to imagine that fire-fighting equipment has done so much damage to the trails to make them dangerous. And if firefighting has done damage to the environment, then I want to see it. But they're not showing it.

Still, there was one trail we could hike on that got within a half-mile or so of the fire. It looked not great and not terrible at that distance - it seemed like the fire burned pretty hot and took out even the trees, so it wasn't just a grass and brush fire, but it was also very spotty, leaving lots of unburnt areas. This was only a small part of the fire though, and I'm not sure what the rest looks like.

And if the firefighting had gone overboard and did any damage, we were too far away to know.

-Brian

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