Help FMSSF Stop Illegal Off-Highway Vehicle Use

Myles Standish trail system is closed to all motor vehicles except those used for management by Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) employees. There are signs posted at all roads leading into the forest, and at many trailheads informing the public that MSSF’s trails are closed to motorized vehicles.

Despite this, off-highway vehicles (OHV) regularly enter the forest from the public roads, utility lines and abutting properties. They have damaged miles of trails intended for use by hikers, equestrians and mountain bike riders, started fires and endangered other users. Reckless OHV riders have ravaged unique geological features of our fragile Pine Barrens ecology such as frost pockets and wetlands and have wantonly created a network of unauthorized trails throughout the park, destroying native vegetation and causing extensive erosion as a result.

You can help by reporting information that will be logged and used to gather evidence for identification and prosecution of trespassing OHV operators and for guiding official monitoring efforts.

Please report the following information to MSSF Headquarters by phone (508) 866-2526 or e-mail myles.standish@state.ma.us, or call the toll-free 24-hour of the Environmental Police Dispatch Center at 1-800-632-8075:

1. The time, date and approximate location of the sighting as precisely as you can describe it;

2. The number and type of OHV’s along with any descriptions of machines and operators;

3. Direction of travel of the machines when sighted;

4. Any other information or ideas you have which may be useful in determining where the OHV’s came from or went to;

5. The identities of the operators, if known.

Please do not confront violators. We want to stress that it is the job of the DCR Rangers, Environmental Police and other law enforcement officers to confront violators.

Thank you for your help.

Friends of Myles Standish State Forest