{"id":98812,"date":"2018-07-09T18:21:45","date_gmt":"2018-07-10T00:21:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/motorcyclists-damage-alpine-tundra-north-of-silverton\/"},"modified":"2018-07-09T18:21:45","modified_gmt":"2018-07-10T00:21:45","slug":"motorcyclists-damage-alpine-tundra-north-of-silverton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/motorcyclists-damage-alpine-tundra-north-of-silverton\/","title":{"rendered":"Motorcyclists damage alpine tundra north of Silverton"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Police
Police are looking for three suspects who illegally went off-road north of Silverton and damaged alpine tundra.<\/span>Courtesy of San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Another instance of people illegally driving off-road in alpine tundra outside Silverton has put the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office on the search for three suspects.<\/p>\n

Sheriff Bruce Conrad said three people on Sunday morning were riding motorcycles over delicate wetlands and alpine tundra in the Eureka Gulch area near Lake Emma, north of Silverton.<\/p>\n

A person hiking in the area took photos and video of the motorcyclists and turned the information over to the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t go off-road anywhere,\u201d Conrad said. \u201cIf it\u2019s not obvious you should be there, you don\u2019t belong there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alpine tundra usually exists at elevations between 11,000 and 11,500 feet. Vegetation there is extremely fragile, and it can take hundreds of years for the landscape to recover from damage like off-roading.<\/p>\n

Through social media, the Sheriff\u2019s Office said it has likely identified two of the three suspects. Dominic Willis and Nathan Bemo are wanted for questioning about the incident, Conrad said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSocial media \u2026 this is where it shines,\u201d Conrad said.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office is also asking for help to identify a group that drove off-road in the Animas Forks area, also north of Silverton, around 5 p.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n

Conrad said authorities haven\u2019t been able to identify the suspects from photos taken of the incident.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office was able to identify and charge a suspect who led a group of ATV\u2019ers off road in the Velocity Basin area last month, also damaging alpine tundra and wetlands.<\/p>\n

In that incident, a hiker took photos of the group driving off-road, which quickly spread on social media. The group was eventually identified, and the adult driver of one of the ATVs was charged by the Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Conrad said the Bureau of Land Management is also involved because the ATV\u2019ers drove across land the agency manages.<\/p>\n

In recent years, the high country around Silverton has become a popular spot for motorized sports, such as ATVs, dirt bikes and backcountry jeeping.<\/p>\n

But with that popularity, \u201cmore and more people are being boneheads going off-road,\u201d Conrad said.<\/p>\n

The Sheriff\u2019s Office asks people who witness these incidents to take photos and video of the vehicles. Conrad said the Sheriff\u2019s Office will prosecute those caught to the fullest extent of the law.<\/p>\n

When possible, Conrad said it\u2019s good for people to educate riders that going off-road is illegal. But the Sheriff\u2019s Office is concerned that confrontations could turn dangerous.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tough, because I\u2019m worried about something dangerous happening at some point,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are taking this very, very seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

enforcement looking for three suspects<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[168,4259,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-98812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-crime","tag-newsletter-sign-up","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98812"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=98812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}