Irresponsible target shooters are ruining this Sonoran Desert preserve

Just an hour’s drive southwest of the roasting concrete sprawl of Phoenix, you can get the feeling of having traveled thousands of years back in time, before large portions of the Sonoran Desert were paved over.

In the Sonoran Desert National Monument — the ancestral lands of the O’odham, Yavapai Apache, Cocopah and Hohokam peoples — it’s possible to wander among bone-quiet geology, petroglyphs and cactus giants.

The national monument, created in 2001, protects a magnificent swath of the Sonoran Desert, the most biologically diverse desert in North America.

But the irreplaceable biological, scientific and cultural resources the monument was designated to preserve are threatened by rampant, irresponsible target shooting.

Petroglyphs, cactuses are blown to bits

Incredibly, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management allows shooting on 90% of the monument’s nearly 500,000 wild acres. After 20 years of target shooting in the monument, it’s clear that it doesn’t belong here.

Because of two lawsuits and a recent legal agreement, those days may be numbered.

On a recent trip, I saw signs of shooting all around me.

Petroglyphs used for target practice. Centuries-old saguaro cactuses blasted with shotgun pellets and pierced with rounds from assault rifles.

Ancient geology blown to bits, and hundreds of bullet shells left in the dirt.

I heard a shot whiz by far too close for my comfort and saw a propane tank that had recently been used as a target. It was left next to a saguaro for someone else to clean up.

In addition to decimated ancient rock art and cactus, toxic lead from hundreds of thousands of shattered bullets is concentrated in the desert soil, threatening the health of people who breathe in the tainted dust, along with wildlife that eat lead fragments.

With other places to shoot, why shoot here?

The agency already allows target shooting on nearly all of the 12.1 million acres of public lands it manages in Arizona. There are plenty of places people can target shoot all over the state, including near the Phoenix metro area.

There’s absolutely no reason for open season on saguaros and petroglyphs in one of our most treasured national monuments.

For years the National Rifle Association and other gun groups have pressured the BLM to allow target shooting in the monument.

And the agency has obliged, despite the BLM’s own study concluding that target shooting is unsafe and incompatible with the monument’s purpose.

Saguaro cactus: How fast they grow, and can you cut one?

Now the BLM is considering how to amend the monument’s management plan under a legal agreement with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society, which sued twice to block shooting in the monument.

The agency will decide whether to keep things as they are, reduce the acreage open to target shooting or ban shooting altogether.

The BLM is accepting public comments on target shooting in the monument until July 21.

Ban shooting in the monument for good

Over the past century national monument designations have protected some of the country’s most iconic natural and cultural landmarks from development and exploitation.

Arizona is blessed with 18 national monuments, tied with California for the most in any state. These protected public lands are held in trust for future generations.

In the Sonoran Desert National Monument, endangered Sonoran pronghorns, mountain lions, tortoises, dozens of reptile species and as many as 200 species of birds roam, burrow and swoop.

Even the desert floor is alive: In less traveled reaches, there is cryptobiotic crust — a layer of biotic organisms such as cyanobacteria, lichens, mosses, green algae, microfungi and bacteria protecting the desert from erosion.

We can’t allow gun lobbyists and the BLM’s abdication of its stewardship role to blow away the monument’s rich cultural history and truly wild character.

I hope you’ll join me in urging the BLM to end target shooting in the Sonoran Desert National Monument for good.

Russ McSpadden is the Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. He lives in Tucson. On Twitter, @PeccaryNotPig.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Target shooting is ruining the Sonoran Desert National Monument