Too bad, trails are used by all the wildlife at night. Doves roost on it, fire eyed trail birds sit on it all night, deer use it, coyotes use it, foxes use it, conejo's use it as they wander back and forth browsing. Kangaroo rats and pack rats like it too. The insect world has all those stink bug carabids, scorpions, tarantulas, metallic green eyed spiders. These are just a few of the things I see at night on the trail. In addition burrowing owls and barn owls hunt the trail at night.
In the flora many plants need the disturbed soil to grow. Some are rare and endangered, the Lyons Pantachaeta, I only find it along trails, gold fields, Mariposa Lilly and Plummer's Lilly also are associated with being aligned with trails.
Without the diversification of trails: the grass land becomes unified and somewhat dead. Have you noticed how on one side of a trail it can be grass and on the other it is sage scrub? It seems traveling across the grassland without a trail is much more difficult and noisy which most critters find deadly.
Happy riding deer trails across abandoned sage scrub.
