All Terrain Vehicles damage Bloomington nature reserves Officials say that drivers on all-terrain vehicles in Bloomington, Ind., are damaging two nature reserves by destroying vegetation, including some species unique to the area.
ATVs are prohibited by city ordinance in Griffy Lake Nature Preserve and neighboring Indiana University Research and Teaching Preserve and driving through the areas constitutes trespass, officials say.
City parks director Mick Renneisen said Monday that the problem has been going on for a couple of years now. Entry points have been signposted, but "it doesn't seem to be helping," he said.
Keith Clay, an IU biology professor and director of its preserve, said the area is so sensitive ecologically that some damage to shallow soils can take a century for nature to undo.
ATV drivers motor back and forth between the 190-acre IU preserve and the 1,179-acre city preserve and they also have been damaging the IU golf course, he said.
"And it seems to be getting worse," the professor added.
Clay said the ATV riders enter the two preserves along ridgetops and from the east side of the city preserve. He said he thinks the officials "know exactly who is doing it, but it's very hard to catch them."
On Tuesday, the city natural resources manager Steve Cotter pointed out damage from ATVs along the first quarter-mile or so of a trail leading from a gate into the preserve. The preserve has huge sycamore and walnut trees, and some reach more than 100 feet high.
The ground cover on the bottom and the hillsides features a rich and diverse variety of flora and fauna.
"It is a jewel," Cotter said. "It is very diverse. To have a nature preserve of this size next to a town of this size is very rare," he added.
However, the ATV tracks run straight up the ravine's hillsides, down the nature trail and across the creek bottoms and the creeks themselves.
Cotter noted "that's all it takes" to channel rain runoff straight down the hill to rut and erode it, washing silt into the creek and into already endangered Griffy Lake. Along the nature trail, ATVs have worn ruts in the bends and churned the soil into dust.
Cotter said the ATVs aren't likely to cause much disturbance to animals such as opossums and raccoons, which survive well in human-populated areas. But he said it likely does disturb more "reclusive" species as well as birds.
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