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JANUARY 7, 2021
WILLISTON’S NEWSPAPER SINCE 1985
Dog havoc threatens public trail access
WWW.WILLISTONOBSERVER.COM
Family looks to conserve 110 acres off Route 2A BY JASON STARR Observer staff
Dog owner Alison Frey displays proper leash etiquette Tuesday at Oak View Hill Trail. Dogs running off leash have caused havoc on the adjacent farmland, and the town is considering banning dogs from the property. OBSERVER PHOTO BY AL FREY
BY JASON STARR Observer staff Off-leash dogs are terrorizing turkeys, killing chickens, stressing wildlife and damaging native plant habitat at the Isham Family Farm as they roam free on the publiclymanaged Oak View Hill trail system on the property. The situation, which has worsened over the past year as trail use and dog ownership have both increased through the pandemic, has town officials considering closing off the trails to the public. “The voice control thing is honestly kind of a joke,” Williston Conservation Planner Melinda Scott said of the previous dog policy — which allowed dogs to be off leash but under voice control — that was in place up until last spring. Erin Alamed of the Humane Society of Chittenden County agrees. She said it’s rare for a person to have true voice control over their dog. “I think it’s a lovely idea. I don’t think it’s realistic,” she said, “because there are so many elements outside that you can’t predict. And you never know what the dog is actually thinking. Some dogs are great at coming back to their owners no matter what. But I think most dogs you really just can’t trust that.” With dogs romping through the mead-
ows that line the trail system, and dog waste bags dotting the trails, landowners Mike Isham and Helen Weston requested a leash-only dog policy be implemented. In May, the town posted the new rule on signs along the trails. “The signs are pretty clear what the expectations are, but it hasn’t really seemed to solve the problem,” Scott said. “A lot of people are ignoring the signs and allowing their dogs off leash.” Isham and Weston have focused their work at the fifth-generation farm on creating a haven for birds, wildlife and native plants. They put land on the west side of Oak Hill Road into a conservation easement with a public trail corridor managed by the town. Each week, year-round, dozens of dog owners use the trail, Weston said. “I have spoken with many individuals about the rules and been ignored multiple times,” Weston wrote in an email to the Observer. “Many dogs are still off leash, many bags of excrement still left behind, and many people and dogs not staying on designated trails. (Our) environmental work is compromised with each time these directives are not followed.” Scott has drafted a proposal for the selectboard to consider banning dogs from the property. The selectboard is expected to take up the proposal in February. “We’ve discussed closing the trail to
all uses, at least temporarily, just to get the message out, but we decided to try a no dog policy (first),” Scott said. “If people don’t comply with the no dog rule, we may have no choice but to just close the trail. “I understand people’s desire to let their dogs run but it does have impacts.” The town manages seven conserved natural areas totaling about 500 acres with 12 miles of trails crossing both public and private land. Dogs are permitted off leash under voice control on the public land, but must be leashed when trails cross into private land. The Oak View Hill trail system is the only one of the town’s natural areas that runs through working farmland. “This really is a unique situation because the trails are embedded into their farm where they have all of their other operations going on,” Scott said. Weston said she was seeing up to 100 dogs per week on the trails during the warmer months. Alamed, the director of community outreach at the Humane Society, said that the pandemic has spurred an increase in dog ownership. “We’ve seen cats, dogs and small animals just flying out the door getting adopted in record time as people are just looking for companions since they’ve been home for so long now,” she said. “People are reaching out desperate to adopt and we can’t quite fill the need for the community.”
Williston resident Dan Boomhower is planning to donate the development rights on 110 acres off Route 2A to the Vermont Land Trust, expanding a conserved forest and meadow block that stretches between Route 2A and Oak Hill Road, and includes the Town of Williston’s Sucker Brook Hollow and Five Tree Hill conservation areas. The property is currently a source of timber, firewood and hay, Boomhower wrote in a December letter to the Williston Conservation Commission. It also has a trail system maintained by local snowmobilers and is open for hunting. Boomhower would like those uses to continue, and would consider creating a public trail easement. “The property is a wildlife corridor used by bear, bobcats and coyotes. The property is home to deer, turkeys, ravens and other birds or prey,” Boomhower wrote to the commission. “Our family has made a conscious choice to keep the property informally open for people to meander on.” He is requesting roughly $20,000 from the town to help with legal and administrative fees associated with transferring development rights to the Vermont Land Trust. “This property is pretty high value and high priority for conservation because it’s located in this big forest block adjacent to already conserved properties,” Williston Conservation Planner Melinda Scott said. Boomhower’s family has owned the property since the 1840s. While the conservation easement would protect the property from development, it would not open it to public access unless a future trail easement is created. “We would like that and we’ve proposed that, but it’s got to be compatible with the other uses of the property,” Scott said. “Conflicts can arise and we’ve got to make sure that if there is a trail easement that we can manage the use of it so it’s compatible with the forestry operations.”