400+ Pounds of Steel Cable Stolen from Tijuana Estuary

Thieves stole about 435 pounds of stainless steel cable from the Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge last month, said Lisa Cox with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Authorities at the estuary first noticed much of the cable that ran between wooden poles along the North McCoy Trail was gone on March 27, Cox said.

"I'm not sure what people would use that cable for. That's why we thought maybe it was for recycling," she said. "They did it over the course of three nights and they did it little bits at a time."

U.S. Fish and Wildlife law enforcement don't know how the more than 1,800 feet of cable was transported away from the estuary but they believe the cable was cut into pieces at night and recycled for money, Cox said.

No trace of the cable was found when officials asked nearby scrap metal recycling centers if someone attempted to recycle the cable.

The estuary purchased the cable for about $4,000. A salvage company contacted by IB Patch said the cable may only fetch about $150 if recycled.

The cable was used to deter estuary visitors from straying into the wetlands.

"They don't recover well after you trample on them so we like to encourage people to stay on the trail at all times," she said. "There's a lot of nests there and its really hard to see."

Belding's Savannah Sparrows and Light-Footed Clapper Rails are currently nesting in cord grass and wetlands near the trail, Cox said. Savannah Sparrows are listed as an endangered species in California and Light-Footed Clapper Rails have been deemed endangered species by the federal government.

The cable will be replaced with cheaper galvanized steel or weather-proof rope, Cox said.

"With our budget much tinier this year we definitely can't afford to replace it with such high-quality stuff," she said.

This isn't the first time raw material was stolen from the estuary, Cox said. A few years ago copper wires in a storage building next to baseball fields at the Sports Park and Recreation Center were stolen.

"They broke in there and stole a lot of copper wiring that we were going to use to get electricity into that place. We still don't have electricity in that building. It was too big of a loss," she said.

Last May thieves believed to be looking for copper burglarized a building in the 1100 block of Palm Avenue that used to be Burger King. After entering the building from a roof hatch, four air conditioning units were destroyed, , the San Diego County Sheriff's Department said.