Editorial: 'Priceless' Indian petroglyphs used for target practice

Recreational target shooters call it “trigger trash” — tons and tons of refrigerators, car parts, televisions, sofas, bowling pins and other unwanted junk that shooters haul onto pristine federal woodlands and shred with gunfire for sheer enjoyment.

The abuses are scarring forest lands from the Carolinas to the Pacific Northwest. An emergency halt to target shooting had to be issued for the Croatan National Forest, in North Carolina, after hundreds of complaints from alarmed visitors. Forest Service records show an increasing raft of violations, like shooting from cars and shooting in campgrounds.

The problem keeps growing, with hikers and conservationists warning that virtual free-fire zones threaten not only national forests but also millions of multiple-use Western acres overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, where there are too few enforcement officers. Citizens describe scenes resembling war zones, as volleys of gunfire roll across the mountains.

It’s bad enough that federal crews have to clean up after the shooters leave their bullet-riddled detritus behind in the forests. More alarming is that these feckless “sportsmen” have been taking pot shots at priceless prehistoric petroglyphs — the rock art depicting animals and people left behind by ancient Indian tribes in such treasured sites as Utah’s Lake Mountains.

“You feared for your life,” one petroglyph hobbyist told Jack Healy of The Times in describing scenes of desecrated rock art, shredded juniper trees, spilled shotgun shells and the mess from cans of spray paint that shooters like to explode.