Piru Creek Motorcycle Trail to Reopen : Environment: Biologists warn it may kill the dwindling arroyo toad population. Los Padres National Forest officials say protective measures are planned.

The U.S. Forest Service announced Monday that it intends to reopen a motorcycle trail through a Ventura County stream bed, despite biologists’ warnings that it could wipe out the local population of the arroyo toad.

One of the few remaining populations of the tiny toad, which is a candidate for the federal endangered species list, lives and breeds at the point where the popular Snowy Trail crosses Piru Creek in the Los Padres National Forest in northeast Ventura County.

The Forest Service will move the crossing 10 feet downstream, install flat rocks in the stream bed to prevent silt from being stirred up, and construct fences to keep cyclists from riding off the trail and destroying sensitive stream bed habitat.

Officials hope to have the trail reopened by spring. But biologists have promised an appeal that may delay the opening.

Moving the trail crossing 10 feet away from the breeding pool will be no help to the three-inch-long amphibian whose population in the forest now numbers fewer than 1,200, said Sam Sweet, a UC Santa Barbara biologist who is considered an international expert on the arroyo toad.

“You’re trading the killing of tadpoles and eggs for the deaths of adult and juvenile toads,” said Sweet, who joined biologists at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in opposing the reopening of the trail. The young and adult toads will be crushed when they sit on the dry, flat rocks on the crossing or hide beneath the boulders at the stream’s edge, he said.

Forest Service officials “have ignored everything we’ve said,” he said.

But Forest Service officials said money for patrolling the area comes from recreational vehicle user fees, so less money would be available to pay for officers if the trail were closed.

“Then we would have no control over the pools,” said Patty Bates of the Mt. Pinos District of the forest.

The trail, used by about 7,500 motorcyclists a year, was closed during the summer of 1990 because of fire danger. Late last year, the Forest Service decided to keep the trail closed while it evaluated its effect on the toad and other wildlife.

The Forest Service plans to begin work on the trail in January. In addition to rerouting the trail, forest officials also plan to restore the part of the stream bed where the trail now crosses.

Sweet said that the 1991 breeding season, which begins in the spring, will be crucial to the survival of the species in the forest, where the toads once numbered in the tens of thousands. No young survived from last year, he said, and it takes three years for a young toad to become mature enough to reproduce.

The Los Padres forest, which has the largest arroyo toad population anywhere, is home to about 340 adults and another 800 young living along the Piru and Sespe creeks in Ventura County and the Santa Ynez River in Santa Barbara County. The toad’s population in the forest has declined because of development, recreational use of its habitat and five years of drought, biologists say.

Up to 10 adults live at the Snowy Trail crossing, Sweet said.

Motorcycle riders applauded the Forest Service’s decision to reopen the trail. Dana Bell, legislative officer for the Los Angeles district of the American Motorcyclist Assn., said the group would sponsor a volunteer committee to restore the existing trail crossing to a natural state and help build the new route.

“We want to get users more involved in the maintenance,” she said.

Kurt Hathaway, a Tujunga firefighter and a member of the California Off-Road Vehicle Assn., said the motorcycles do not affect a stream any more than a hiker’s boots.

“The off-highway vehicle community is getting a bad rap,” he said. “We are very concerned about how we affect the environment.”