The Bureau of Land Management plans to ban target shooting in Bears Ears National Monument, drawing the ire of sportsman groups around the country.
According to its proposed final management plan, released Thursday, the BLM will not allow any kind of recreational shooting on the 1.36 million-acre monument located an hour west of Blanding. The restriction, according to the plan, “will provide additional protection of wilderness character.” Using guns to hunt will still be permitted, however.
The management plan is the result of a first-of-its-kind collaboration among the BLM, the National Forest Service and five Native American tribes who consider parts of the area their culturally sacred homelands.
“The proposed plan, if approved, would ensure lasting protections for the monument’s cultural and natural resources, including ancestral cliff dwellings and culturally significant landscapes,” a news release from the BLM said, “while providing continued opportunities for outdoor recreation such as hiking, camping, and hunting.”
Some sportsman and firearms groups immediately balked at the restrictions.
“There are federal statutes that require BLM to have considered a different approach than an outright ban,” Michael Jean, a lawyer for the Sportsmen’s Alliance, said in a statement. “Whether by oversight or with clear intent, we cannot stand by as our members and supporters are thrown off public land in violation of existing law, and we won’t.”
(Brian Maffly | The Salt Lake Tribune) A man, who identified himself as Tony, takes aim at paper targets with a 9mm handgun on public lands west of Utah Lake. The Bureau of Land Management's final management plan bans for Bears Ears National Monument bans recreational shooting.
The Firearm Industry Trade Association also spoke out against the plan. A statement from the group said the ban denies target shooters access to the monument “for no legally justifiable purpose” and violates the John D. Dingell, Jr., Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act. The Dingell Act, passed in 2019, limits the area and duration that public lands can be closed.
Both groups have vowed to fight the plan in court if it is ultimately approved. Before it can be finalized, the plan must go through a 30-day protest period, scheduled to end Nov. 4, as well as a 60-day Governor’s Consistency Review. The review allows federal, state and local governments and tribes to identify inconsistencies between their previously approved resource management plans and the proposed one.
Last March, the BLM opened public comment on a draft version of its Bears Ears plan. During that time, according to the agency’s website, it and the National Forest Service held seven public meetings and addressed close to 19,000 public comments.
Once outstanding issues with the plan are resolved, the BLM will issue a Record of Decision for Bears Ears and the National Forest Service will issue a Record of Decision amending the 1986 Manti-La Sal National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance claims recreational shooting typically is allowed on national monuments and that in many Western states “public lands such as these provide the only opportunity for such activities.” However, in recent years management plans for both Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument and the Sonoran Desert National Monument have banned target shooting.
In 2017, the BLM transferred land near Utah Lake to Utah County to be used as a shooting range to contain the destruction caused by target shooters. Among the impacts the agency tied to target shooting were dumping, damage to ancient rock art and fires. The BLM later banned recreational shooting on 2,000 acres near the lake.
(Zak Podmore | The Salt Lake Tribune) Tara Benally, field director for the Rural Utah Project and member of the Women of Bears Ears, speaks to reporters about the restoration of Bears Ears National Monument at a press conference held atop Muley Point in San Juan County on Friday, Oct. 8, 2021.
Todd Adkins, a senior vice president for Sportsmen’s Alliance, said the BLM has ignored his and other groups’ pleas to allow the activity at Bears Ears.
“No surprise here,” he said in a statement. “BLM told everyone many months ago that the agency’s preferred alternative was to ban recreational shooting altogether. The notice and comment process proved meaningless, so we must turn to the courts to keep public land truly public.”
Under the proposed plan, off-highway vehicles will also be banned in some areas. About 600,000 acres, or about 44% of the monument, will be completely off-limits to OHVs and another 400,000 acres will be restricted.
The Bears Ears Commission said the plan, as written, allows tribes to continue passing down “cultures and lifeways.”
A statement from the commission said the proposed plan is “the first to formally adopt Traditional Indigenous Knowledge as a guiding principle in the enduring management framework for the monument.”
Protests of the final plan can be filed online through the BLM National Environmental Policy Act Register or through the mail. Mail-in protests should be addressed to: BLM Director, Attention: Protest Coordinator (HQ210), Denver Federal Center, Building 40 (Door W-4), Lakewood, CO 80215.
