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Crumb Clean Campaign

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The old-growth forests that are still standing are often in parks where people are constantly cycling through. With people, comes trash and with trash comes in new animals that usually wouldn’t be scavenging through this area. Leftover food and trash bring in large populations of Jays and Ravens which eat Marbled Murrelet eggs and chicks. The California Department of Parks and Recreation has taken action by launching the Crumb Clean Commitment. The campaign's statement is that yes, even the crumbs matter when cleaning up after yourself. The campaign uses the Three E’s that’s Engineering, Education, and Enforcement, which all tie together to give visitors what they need to be Crumb Clean. They first try to educate them on what little actions they can do to save the Marbled Murrelet, how they can raise awareness and support by telling the birds story. The final is how they close the loop by enforcing these rules.

©  Video courtesy of California State Parks, all rights reserved.

Engineering

  1.  Use Food Storage Lockers (must be animal proof)
  2. California parks provides secure place’s to store food and are big enough to fit camping coolers and food bins. By putting food in the lockers this limits the number of animals that would be drawn to the campsite.

  3. Use secure animal-proof trash cans. 

  4. The Department of Parks and Recreation added grates on each of the water spigots. Water spigots are where visitors typically wash their dishes. The food scraps that are left on the ground now fall out of reach of the animals that might find them.  They also added dishwashing stations to help limit the amount of food waste that is left in the open.

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Education

  1. The Department of Parks and Recreation requires all campers to sign a “Crumb Clean Commitment” sheet when they check in. The information sheet teaches them about the importance of being Crumb Clean as well as receiving information on the the murrelet (Zone 6 only).
  2. Lots of signage! They make the biggest impacts by putting up signs for every important message they want to get across including; At every campsite on the food locker, and "This is a Crumb Clean Campground sign" at the entrance to all campgrounds.
  3. The park rangers also try to reach the younger generations by giving out stickers, magnets, pins to help raise awareness from the start.

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Enforcement

1. Rangers visit the campground each morning and give out tickets for finding trash or food that was left out over night.

2. The Department of Parks and Recreation updates their Closure Orders for food storage yearly. This is required for them to more their rules enforceable.

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©  Photo courtesy of California State Parks, all rights reserved.

©  Photo courtesy of California State Parks, all rights reserved.

©  Photo courtesy of California State Parks, all rights reserved.

©  Photos courtesy of California State Parks, all rights reserved.

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