Los Padres National Forest issues ban on target shooting

Facing litigation, Los Padres National Forest has issued a ban on target shooting outside of permitted gun ranges.

Right now, it's a temporary order but is one that could last a year or longer. Other forests in the region have a more permanent ban in place, allowing target shooting only at managed sites.

"We're the last of the Southern California forests to do it," said Andrew Madsen, spokesman for the Los Padres National Forest.

A lawsuit filed in August prompted the move, he said, and the order will stay in effect as federal agencies look at environmental impacts of the activity.

"We do recognize that it was time for a consultation and to get Fish and Wildlife Service to prepare another (biological opinion)," Madsen said.

In 2016, a Santa Barbara-based nonprofit released a report calling unregulated target shooting one of the most serious threats to natural resources and public safety in the forest.

Los Padres ForestWatch said it had monitored sites throughout Los Padres and found areas littered with trash, shotgun shells and lead bullets.

"We recognize that people like going out into the forest and shooting at targets. That's a perfectly legitimate use of public lands," said Jeff Kuyper, ForestWatch executive director.

"What we don't support is trash and contamination being left behind as a result," he said.

In its 2016 report, ForestWatch said it found 94 distinct target-shooting sites in the forest, which stretches from Ventura to San Luis Obispo.

The group said target shooting had sparked fires and sites had varying degrees of trash, from spent casings to shot-up televisions. Surveys found signs, bathrooms and picnic tables riddled with bullet holes.

'Structure and accountability'

At the time, the Forest Service said legal shooting, for the most part, wasn't causing the environmental issues, but that most of the problems were caused by illegal shooting.

To implement or enforce a forest-wide ban would take more personnel and funding, Los Padres officials said.

The lawsuit filed last year came more than a decade after a 2005 forest plan said Los Padres would change the policy on target shooting.

The plan stated an intent to limit target shooting to specific sites that are managed under special-use authorizations. 

But that new policy wasn't implemented, Kuyper said. He called the announcement of a temporary ban a step in the right direction.

ForestWatch, which filed the lawsuit, doesn't want to outlaw target shooting, he said. They're looking for something with structure and accountability, like the well-managed shootings sites that already exist and leave behind little or no environmental footprint.

ForestWatch also has posted a map on its website showing more than two dozen indoor and outdoor ranges less than an hour's drive away.

What's happening now

Los Padres issued a seasonal ban on recreational target shooting in July because of fire-hazard restrictions, something that typically happens annually. Earlier this month, officials announced they would extend it through mid-January 2020. 

Under the order, officials said, discharging a firearm is prohibited except in the designated target ranges at the Winchester Canyon Gun Club and the Ojai Valley Gun Club.

Legal hunting also was exempt.

In October, Los Padres officials requested federal regulatory agencies consult about environmental impacts. Their findings are expected to be issued later this year, Madsen said, and are expected to help shape what happens next.

In a statement, the Forest Service said the order was issued "out of an abundance of caution."

Group plans cleanup days

With a ban in place until 2020, ForestWatch said it plans to organize cleanup days to go out and pick up trash at the informal shooting sites.

Starting in 2007, the group said, it had hundreds of volunteers participate in cleanups, collecting thousands of pounds of trash, but the program stopped several years ago.

"It became a really frustrating exercise where our volunteers spent a day out in the forest cleaning up trash that people left behind," Kuyper said, "and we would go back months, or even just weeks later, and there would be new trash."

Efforts are expected to pick up again in March and continue throughout the year, said Bryant Baker, ForestWatch conservation director. To find out how to get involved, email volunteer@LPFW.org.

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