Shooting at trees

[WillysWagon]

When recently talking to a coworker about shooting in the State & National Parks, we talked about shooting at trees. I said we are not allowed (as in it’s illegal) to shoot at any tree, alive or dead. He disagreed stating he recently read it only stated we can’t shoot at ‘Live’ trees. I looked quickly to find more info and didn’t come up with much. Anyone have more info on State/National Park ‘rules & regulations’ about shooting at tree’s in the parks? Links would even be better as I want to print out the info to give my coworker so he knows. I know the rules and such change from area to area, but is there mention of an overall rule that states we can’t shoot at a tree, no matter what?

Thanks,
Kyle

[KarlPMann]

He's somewhat correct, and so are you. As it was explained to me by the then "Ranger" for the district in which we hold our 'South Shoots'....

The law specifically forbids shooting at all live trees. It does not specifically state you cannot shoot at dead trees. There is a part of the law that says you cannot 'disturb or damage' any wildlife habitat... and goes on to include trees that are dead, even if fallen. They consider shooting at these 'dead' trees as a violation of that section of the law. The penalties are the same as I recall. A few bucks out of pocket, and a short vacation at a nearby federal resort community.

As for the specific law numbers and such, I honestly couldn't say. You could always try calling the local USFS office and ask. Karl.

[PhL0aTeR]

i dont know anything about the law.... but was always taught not to shoot at anything you werent going to pack out. (targets or animals)

[WillysWagon]

The only rule/reg I found was on an 'Arapaho & Rosevelt National Forests, Pawnee National Grassland' web page that stated, you weren't allowed to put targets on trees for shooting (didn't mention live or dead, just trees in general). I'll look more tonight if I have time.

[Gman]

Don't shoot at anything you aren't prepared to eat.

Ask me for my clay pigeon recipes at the next shoot.

Try this for info;
http://michaelbane.blogspot.com/2005...-catch-22.html

[XJ]

I am not prepared to eat paper targets, or Sight-N-See stickers either.

Assclown needs a target stand, they are inexpensive or may be home-made. He must be quite a forester to be able to determine if a tree is alive or dead during all seasons.

[Gman]

If it's a conifer, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out if it's alive in the winter.

...unless we were in Louisiana and discussing the bald cypress.

[marty]

This summer my family and I were camping out in the backcountry down a 4WD road near the La Garita wildneress area. We had a storm roll though with winds that I'd guess were in excess of 50 mph. The wind blew down a live, green needled ponderosa pine tree that was about 30 inches in diameter and perhaps 60 feet tall. The tree landed a few feet away from our tent. Way too close for comfort. When I inspected the tree at the point where it broke, about 5 feet from the ground, I found an extremely large number of .44 mag bullets lodged inside the wood, and a lot of sap that had oozed out of the wood. I'm assuming someone had fixed a target in that area, did quite a bit of shooting, and weakened the wood to a point where the wind was enough to break the tree. If that tree fell a few more feet in the direction of our tent it would have been a disaster.

[wolfpack_one]

So would it be safe to conclude that .44 mag would be the preferred caliber for hunting wild trees, but takes a long time for the kill?

Kidding aside, glad to hear you and your family were safe. Hard to believe that a 30" diameter tree could be sufficiently weakened from being shot to actually fall. Curious, what was the reaction in your tent when it went down?

[marty]

The reaction from the tent was suprisingly calm. Glad that the tent was not a few feet over into the wrong direction. I think the tree must have been weakened by the large number of .44 mag bullets. The wood in that area was dried out from where sap had oozed.