Wildlife returning to dump site cleaned up by volunteers

Photo: Contributed

Volunteers hauling a dumped vehicle out of the bush (L) where a moose stands a month later (R)

Wildlife is returning to the backcountry east of Kelowna where a volunteer effort cleared out an illegal dump site one month ago. 

Kane Blake of the Okanagan Forest Task Force shared a series of recent photos with Castanet of the Postill Lake area, where more than 100 volunteers hauled a shocking 29,100 pounds of scrap metal and 8,311 pounds of illegally dumped garbage

"This is the location where multiple vehicles were torched and dumped,” he said. "Many of the vehicles had been there for a year or more slowly getting more destroyed. The people doing this could care less about the environment or the effects that it could have.”

A month after the cleanup, a moose was spotted enjoying the area.

"It is so amazing to see wildlife back in that area and it is so clean for them. Without all the amazing volunteers this wouldn't have even been possible,” Kane said. “Because of all the hard work from many volunteers this moose is no longer walking through garbage and burnt vehicles to get to drinking water."  

The Okanagan Forest Task Force has been working on bringing awareness to illegal dumping and the impacts it has on wildlife and forests, removing over 233,000 pounds of dumping metal and garbage from the bush since 2016.