Plan could close 72% of Pike National Forest to dispersed target shooting

The United States Forest Service is seeking public comment on the future of target shooting in the Pike National Forest.

As previously reported, the United States Forest Service first proposed the potential changes in a proposal published in November of 2023 .

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The forest service says the time for the project is now as the population of the Denver and El Paso County areas has continued to grow and likewise so has outdoor recreation in the Pike and San Isabel National Forests.

United States Forest Service

Along with this, the forest service says an uptick in dispersed target shooting has led to forest damage, trash build-up, and damaged waterways, and shooting prohibited exploding targets in a recently published environmental assessment.

What are the proposed solutions?

The United States Forest Service has proposed three solutions to solving the issues that have been arising and developing a management plan for target shooting in the future.

One of the action items is taking no action at all and maintaining the current status of dispersed shooting management. If this is selected, the USFS will maintain its current status of handling conflict, public safety, and resource damage on a case-by-case basis.

Option two would be a three-part adaptive management style in an effort to minimize resource damage, and conflict, and increase public safety. The three-part approach would develop shooting ranges at three ranger districts in Southern Colorado, close areas of public lands to dispersed shooting, and establish an adaptive management plan for the ranger districts across Southern Colorado.

A total of nine sites have been selected as possible spots for the future of target shooting in Southern Colorado. You can see the proposed sites below.

If the USFS goes with option two, approximately 787,680 acres across the Pike National Forest roughly 72% of the forest would be closed to dispersed shooting. You can see the proposed closures below.

Currently, 136,887 acres of the national forest are closed to dispersed shooting. If the plan goes through 309,458 acres of the forest would remain open for dispersed shooting.

The third proposition would be to take minimum action. Under this plan, the only difference would be the areas that would be closed to dispersed target shooting. It would provide about 10% more are open to dispersed target shooting compared to option two with most of the land being located along the Front Range interface on the eastern portion of the forest. See the map below.

Have your voice heard

The project is currently in the comment period and is seeking stakeholders to reach out and provide comments for the next 30 days until September 5.

United States Forest Service

The forest service is searching for specific, descriptive, and locatable comments like the examples provided above. You can submit your own comment here.

The objection period of the project is set to begin around the beginning of September with a decision coming by January 2025 with the implementation of the plan beginning in March of 2025, all dates are estimated and could change based on the project roll out.

Click here to learn more about the project.

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