The logjam that so long has stymied public shooting opportunity along Colorado’s Front Range almost certainly will be cleared. How soon and to what real effect remains to be seen.
Representatives of more than 20 government and conservation groups gathered Tuesday at the Colorado Division of Wildlife to sign a landmark memorandum of understanding aimed at establishing multiple ranges at sites from Fort Collins to Pueblo.
All expressed deep commitment to an initiative that would provide places to accommodate a wide variety of shooting activities. Where and when these will be available will be determined through a process that almost certainly will involve extensive discussion among many segments of the public.
At issue is how best to establish a series of sites of varying size and utility at places determined by perceived need and population distribution. Initial projections call for perhaps a half-dozen such locations.
The U.S. Forest Service, which now bears the brunt of unregulated overflow shooting, will serve as a clearinghouse for the various proposals, beginning with a September meeting in Colorado Springs.
This agency for years has been wrestling with a growing problem of dispersed shooting throughout an increasingly populated region. The situation has been exacerbated by the closing of several ranges, public and private, because of the incursion of housing and commercial developments.
Kent Ingram of Colorado Wildlife Federation, a key player in the memorandum, placed the situation in perspective. “We have an imbalance between supply and demand in recreational shooting,” Ingram said. “The challenge is in finding responsible solutions to these needs.”
While Tuesday’s discussion chiefly involved a broad-based effort along the breadth of the Front Range, a separate action is underway to establish a large, multipurpose range in the Denver metro.
After more than three years of stops and starts, the project has moved forward on two fronts. Proponents have spent half of a $800,000 allotment from Great Outdoors Colorado to develop a “site neutral” blueprint for what has been termed a “world class” range.
In a second development, negotiations are in progress to locate that blueprint at a site on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, immediately northeast of Denver.
“It looks promising,” said Jim Goodyear, special projects director for the Colorado Division of Wildlife and point man for negotiations that also include Colorado State Parks.
Goodyear described the current transaction as a “partial commitment” whose greatest sticking point is to find a way to acquire the federal property. As with the greater initiative proposed Tuesday, the arsenal plan includes no specific timetable.
The memorandum principals also include three separate arms of the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Colorado Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, Colorado Bowhunters Association, Colorado Mule Deer Association, Colorado State 4-H Shooting Sports Program and Colorado Wildlife Federation.
Also, Ducks Unlimited, Firearms Coalition of Colorado, Izaak Walton League, Mule Deer Foundation, National Wild Turkey Federation Colorado, Rocky Mountain Bighorn Society, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Safari Club International.
