Many of the tips and warnings that the National Park Service puts out focus on how visitors should act around wild animals. That’s because each year a few visitors will get seriously injured by not keeping proper distance.
But the agency also has rules regarding respect for the diverse plant life found at the 63 national parks across the country.
The general policy is to “Leave No Trace” and not pick or dig up any plants or roots one comes across. The average visitor is unlikely to know which plants can be crucial to the area’s ecosystem.
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‘Disregard the survival of a rare species’
This week, authorities at Death Valley National Park on the California-Nevada border called for the public’s help in identifying visitors who drove through the park’s Eureka Dunes basin and in doing so significantly damaged a plant protected under the Endangered Species Act.
“I’m saddened that someone would disregard the survival of a rare species for a few minutes of joyriding,” Death Valley Superintendent Mike Reynolds said in a statement.
“There are multiple areas on [Bureau of Land Management] land nearby, such as Dumont Dunes, which are set aside for this type of recreation, but the sensitive dune systems in the National Park are set aside to be protected.”
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The incident likely occurred in late December or early to mid-January and Reynolds further urged anyone who was near Eureka Dunes at the time to come forward with any information.
Visitors can drive to the elevated sand basin located in a remote part of the park through Big Pine or Ubehebe Crater roads but driving through the dunes themselves is strictly forbidden — despite this, visitors have increasingly been doing it anyway.
The plant that the visitor or visitors damaged with the car’s tires are Eureka dunegrass (Swallenia alexandrae), a rare plant species that exists only in California’s Inyo County.
‘Further damage to seeds and other rare plants is likely’
“One Eureka dunegrass plant was directly damaged by vehicle tracks, while eight additional plants were likely affected by root damage due to their proximity to the tracks,” NPS writes further. “Over two miles of vehicle tracks were left on the dunes, suggesting that further damage to seeds and other rare plants is likely.”
Some of the tallest Eureka dunegrass plants found in the Eureka basin reach 680 feet. All of the 63 national parks across the U.S. are federal lands and are governed by the NPS Code of Federal Regulations.
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The laws regarding plant life state that “possessing, destroying, injuring, defacing, removing, digging or disturbing from its natural state” is illegal while penalties can range, depending on severity, from a fine of up to $10,000 to several months in prison.
While in most cases no one will be prosecuted for picking a flower or picking up a twig, the extent of the damage caused by the Death Valley visitors (as well as their fleeing the scene) has now resulted in these widespread efforts to identify them.
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