Twice a day, almost every day, Richard Giegel takes CeeCee, BeeBee and Brinkley for walks at Douglas Family Preserve. There, the dogs run off-leash along trails that meander over 70 acres of undeveloped ocean bluffs and open meadows.
And three times in the past five years, he’s rushed CeeCee to the emergency veterinarian to have foxtails extracted—from her paw, her ear and her nostril. Were the foxtails to burrow further, they could have proved fatal. For each visit, he paid about $1,000.
“She’s a real gopher-digger,” said Giegel about the golden retriever. “She likes to really get her nose down in there, so she’s especially affected.”
Giegel is one of a group of close-knit Mesa residents—and avid dog lovers—pressuring the Santa Barbara Parks and Recreation and Fire departments to take a different approach to controlling the foxtails.
They say that weed-whacking the grasses in the early summer— leaving their seeds scattered on the ground—makes the otherwise idyllic park a hazardous place.
Like Giegel, Adam Birnbaum says he is lucky to be at the park twice a day with Rupert, his 9-year-old springer spaniel.
“The preserve is a unique civic resource,” Birnbaum told the Santa Barbara Park and Recreation Commission Wednesday at its monthly meeting. “…But for many months of the year, it can be a dangerous place for hundreds of dogs every week.”
Birnbaum related that when a foxtail became embedded in Rupert’s eardrum, “He needed to be sedated for the procedure. The cost was roughly $1,200.”
Maintaining the Douglas Family Preserve as a pet-safe space for dogs—in a publicly funded, urban open-space, adjacent to high-risk fire areas—requires a balance of multiple agencies, climate considerations, biological factors, budgets and competing priorities.
Officials for the Santa Barbara Parks and Recreation Department share management with the City Fire Department for the park’s vegetation.
They counter that the Mesa advocates understate the care, planning and science that goes into every decision to reduce the grasses and other fire fuel in the parks.
“This is thoughtful, this is well-planned out,” said Chris Mailes, Santa Barbara City Fire chief. “At the forefront of all our concerns is the safety of the community—what can we do to make the community safer.
“And when we make a decision to go into an area, it’s a collaborative decision…It’s what we can do strategically to mitigate the risk but not change the ecosystem of the area.”
Jill Zachary, parks and recreation director, has met with the Mesa group’s representative. Her team is developing a two-year plan that, among other improvements, will be “sensitive to the timing” of when the non-native grasses need to be suppressed, she said.
She hopes to present that plan at the March 25 advisory Parks and Recreation Commission meeting.
“What are the key issue areas that we think are important to address?” she asked. “One of them definitely is expanded vegetation management…which focuses mostly on non-native eradication, which could be grasses and other plants.”
And foxtails, she added, are a critical but challenging problem because they are everywhere, in every park in the city. Planning the timing of their removal is also tricky because their growth cycle is determined by when and how often it rains in the winter months.
The “foxtail” is the seed from a variety of different grassy weeds, according to the University of California Agricultural and Natural Resources Department website. “The seed has barbed awns (stiff bristles) with a sharp point that goes in easily and barbs that prevent the seed from backing out. These spread quickly and easily due to prolific seed production.”
None of the grasses that produce foxtails at the Douglas Family Preserve is native, and the city hopes to one day fully replace them with beneficial natives, Zachary said.
The Douglas Family Preserve is officially designated an open-space park and requires specific and regulated management practices. Chemicals are not allowed, and the area is too small to bring in sheep and goats to graze, as has been done in Parma Park and other larger parks.
The only way to remove the grasses is to mow them, Zachary added, and some portions of the park are too small for mowing tractors. For those, weed-whipping is the only alternative to hand pulling, though it does spread seeds more than mowing the grasses.
Because the rains came early and often this season, the city contracted with Channel Island Restoration to mow around the perimeter trails and some parts of the interior. The cost is $10,000 for three days of work, Zachary said.
Doug Morgan, operations manager for Channels Islands Restoration, was working at the park with his tractors and crew recently. Grabbing a handful of foxtails growing along the main blufftop trail off Metcliff Road on Thursday, he said he is confident they are cutting the grasses before the seeds are set and can cause their damage.
“It’s as much a matter of timing as of method,” Morgan said, “And I think we’re catching them in time this year.
On this point, Zachary and the Mesa advocates agree.
“It is encouraging to see movement in the right direction,” said Jim Marshall, chairman of the Friends of Douglas Family Preserve and a board member of the Mesa Neighborhood Association.
“However, a single round of mowing will not resolve the larger issue. What we have not yet seen is a clear documented plan for consistent ongoing prevention.”
Marshall particularly objects to the past practice of weed-whipping the grass after the foxtails have matured. This “leaves the seed heads broadcast across the very paths people and dogs use every day,” he said.
Most recently—including last summer—“fuel crews” under contract with the fire department did a second round of weed whipping in June, after the seeds had matured.
This was necessary because the grasses grew back from an earlier cutting, said Mark Von Tillow, a wildland specialist with the fire department who oversaw the project. And the crew had to wait until the spring bird-nesting season was over before the second cutting could start, he added
Finally, Marshall wishes the city agencies would be more responsive to their offers of volunteer help with planning and labor. They are also offering to raise money to enhance the $1.1 million Douglas Family Preserve endowment.
With their numbers, wealth and passion for the park, their donors could enhance and possibly double the park’s endowment, he said.
Fire Chief Mailes, like Zachary, noted that managing volunteers takes time away from already stretched staff members. And agencies oversee enormous amounts of vegetation under biological constraints and weather conditions that change every year.
Together they oversee 23 other open spaces. Zachary’s department has only one person managing the open spaces and a budget spread across 1,800 acres of parkland, playgrounds, beachfronts, community gardens, trails, camps, programs and multiple recreational courts and facilities.
The parks department’s vision for the Douglas Family Preserve, Zachary said, is to ultimately eradicate the non-native grasses and replace them with beneficial natives that will crowd out the weeds and reduce the need for expensive and labor-intensive maintenance.
But until that goal is achieved, Adam Birnbaum and Rupert will continue their outings at the park. And when the foxtails arrive, Rupert will wear his mesh “Outfox” hood. With his mask on, Rupert can see, smell and drink through the mesh, but his head is protected from the foxtails.
“They may not love it, but they still have fun, and they soon get used to ‘hood season,’ which lasts from now until early fall,” Birnbaum said. And of course, he puts dog treats in the bottom of the hood so that Rupert will make positive associations with putting it on.
And after every walk, Birnbaum spends about 20 minutes checking Rupert’s torso and paws.
He’s done this every day for almost six years, since he and his wife bought their Mesa home two blocks from the park. “Our home choice was driven largely by the desire to be within walking distance to this incredible place.”
