FS closes informal shooting area due to trash and complaints

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/mbs/news-events/?cid=FSEPRD585727

I've speculated that recreational shooting on public lands will become more regulated and/or outright banned due to the garbage issue.

We can be our own worst enemy, unfortunately.

This is very true. Here in San Diego County, for example, we went from a lot of shootable areas on NF lands, to a complete closure in the last few years. While I don't like the idea of restricting my use of public lands, once you venture into one of the public "shooting areas", you see first hand why it happened. The volume of trash is unreal. Shells, food containers, bags of trash, shot up electronics and appliances, old targets, diapers, furniture, etc. It is truly disgusting.

I don't understand it, but feel that is has to do with some folks from urban areas, who operate on a different relationship with the world around them coming out to the "woods" to play. I also see it every darn year when we get snow in the local mountains, you go up to hunt, and every pull-out, parking area, picnic spot, etc, is just strewn with garbage from the folks who come out to play in the snow. Bothers me to no end.

We have to police our own ranks. Respect for nature is a fading thing in the general population unfortunately.

Jim Anderson said:

This is very true. Here in San Diego County, for example, we went from a lot of shootable areas on NF lands, to a complete closure in the last few years. While I don't like the idea of restricting my use of public lands, once you venture into one of the public "shooting areas", you see first hand why it happened. The volume of trash is unreal. Shells, food containers, bags of trash, shot up electronics and appliances, old targets, diapers, furniture, etc. It is truly disgusting.

I don't understand it, but feel that is has to do with some folks from urban areas, who operate on a different relationship with the world around them coming out to the "woods" to play. I also see it every darn year when we get snow in the local mountains, you go up to hunt, and every pull-out, parking area, picnic spot, etc, is just strewn with garbage from the folks who come out to play in the snow. Bothers me to no end.

We have to police our own ranks. Respect for nature is a fading thing in the general population unfortunately.

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I think it is indicative of a wider problem, respect for anything is fading. Pretty disheartening to see.

Here in Laramie the dump will give you a free voucher for a pickup truck bed full of trash every year but still people go toss tvs and couches and other trash out by the shooting range. They literally have to drive past the dump to get there. It's quite frustrating. We have volunteer cleanup days which pull hundreds of pounds worth of trash out of the shooting range but within a few weeks you couldn't even tell anything was done. I've thought about putting up a sign imploring people to care but it would be shot up instantly and just become more trash. I don't know how to get people to care, I admit it's dejecting

It's sad but I understand. Never in my life have I seen such a group of careless, disrespectful slobs as I have with public land target shooters. I used to live in Monument, CO and right up the road on Pike national forest (Mt. Herman I think?) was an absolute CF. It was downright dangerous to go up there on a Saturday. I think somebody even got killed up there a few years ago. It's the same way here in Gunnison. I took the family out shed hunting this morning and stumbled on somebody's little recreational sh*t show. I'm sorry but I would support an outright ban on target shooting on public land. It's already been said, but we are our own worst enemy.

A lot of target shooters are downright slobs. In the town where I live we also drive past the dump, which is free, to get to our designated shooting range. Every time I go there I see more new trash like tv's, pallets and plastic jugs they shoot at.
We have cleaned it up several times with help from our local disposal service who provided a dumpster, but the slobs keep leaving more trash.

Pathetic mess some people leave behind when they decide to shoot on public lands. I’m all for it but leave all the aforementioned junk at home to be disposed of properly. Also, pick up your piles and piles of cases/shells. Pretty basic there, simply bring a 5 Gallon bucket and toss them in. If you don’t reload I’m sure someone would love to have once fired brass or shotgun shells. Hope things change out there!

All public use creates problems, including trash.

On trails in NF, volunteers or paid USFS employees walk the trails picking up trash and dog feces. One popular Wilderness camp spot close to Aspen rangers were picking up scores of human feces per week. Being able to cart in trash via a car makes things even worse. There are ways to mitigate the problem.

We desperately need more public ranges. Forest lands are used for huge ski resorts amongst other things, why not a few shooting ranges.

NE of here our state wildlife folks, along with the FS, and some volunteer work from the army if I'm remembering correctly, maybe the NRA too, plus PR funds, built a range with many many shooting stations and berms. A lot of the 25 and 50 yard because that's what urban types like to shoot at. They also have video monitoring of the place so they can see license plates of people who break the rules. Only steel or paper targets, pick up your brass. Of course tons of brass gets left. That's ok, it's in one place, it gets recycled. There's vault toilets. Weekends sees a lot of families.

You can nudge people into better behavior, but the best planning makes it easier for people to act in ways you want them to. Many people have no experience with the outdoors, they've no concept of how to respect our common resource. That doesn't make them bad people, just uninformed. They can learn.

We have a bit of an experiment that will go on here locally in the next few years. The County is going to try to build a Shooting Area. No significant infrastructure except some benches, an outhouse, and (I hope) a dumpster. We'll see if that limits the use of other informal areas.

NC banned shooting on game lands here a couple years ago. In exchange, they started building shooting ranges throughout the state. Most cost $3 to shoot all day and they have rifle and pistol ranges and RSOs on duty. A good trade in my opinion.

A few years ago I went out to a public land pond to do some spring trout fishing. Someone had dumped a washer there at the adjacent campsite. Which is funny because about 10 minutes later two guys showed up to fish as well, took one look at the washer and threw it in the back of their truck to take to the metal recycler. Instead of driving all the way out to the state lands to dump the washer, the litter-bug could have probably driven the same distance and made $10.

I'm all for designated public ranges instead of informal ones. The issue lies with maintenance and liability (environmental, which is a little overblown since lead in soil is pretty immobile, it just costs some money to sift the soil and dispose of the lead).