The Wyoming State Shooting Complex near Cody will cost an estimated $19.5 millions dollars, and it could also come at a price for golden eagles that may be driven off hunting grounds there.
Construction of the shooting complex began Saturday on a 2,000-acre parcel of state land south of Cody. It’s hoped that the facility will open in early fall 2027.
The land falls within the foraging ranges of nesting golden eagle pairs, which have hunted cottontail rabbits, small pronghorn fawns, sage grouse, and other prey there.
Eagle experts told Cowboy State Daily that the raptors will probably avoid the site once people start showing up and shooting. That’s because they have a low tolerance for crowds and loud noises.
However, Bryan Bedrosian, the conservation director for the Teton Raptor Center, stressed that spent lead bullets, bullet fragments and shotgun pellets at the shooting range won’t be a threat to eagles.
Numerous raptors die from lead poisoning after eating carcass parts or guts left behind by hunters who shoot game with lead bullets. Hence, Bedrosian is an advocate for hunters switching to copper bullets, or other lead-free ammunition.
On a target range, that won’t be a problem, he told Cowboy State Daily.
“We are totally good with people shooting lead ammunition at the target range. That’s where it should be shot,” he said.
Lead ammunition is popular for target shooting because it’s cheaper and more readily available than lead-free alternatives.
The Cost To Eagles
Raptor researcher Chuck Preston told Cowboy State Daily that he doesn’t oppose the shooting complex being built, but it should be kept in mind that the project will come at a cost to raptors.
“I’m an avid hunter and shooter. Rifles, shotguns, pistols and archery. I shoot all of the above and I’ll probably use the shooting complex,” he said.
But any human development comes at a cost to wildlife, he added.
“The cost in this case is the loss of some wildlife habitat that eagles use,” he said.
“It will cut into the foraging for some golden eagles that I know have set up shop in the area,” he said.
That comes as eagles are already facing a downturn in one of their primary prey bases, cottontail rabbits.
There have been massive cottontail die-offs in recent years because of persistent rabbit hemorrhagic disease outbreaks, Preston said.
The “sagebrush steppe” landscape that eagles occupy in the Cody/Bighorn Basin area is also a shrinking resource, he said.
“I want people to be mindful of eagle habitat. It’s especially important in an imperiled landscape like the sagebrush steppe,” Preston said.
The silver lining is that the loss of some eagle habitat at the shooting complex could protect habitat elsewhere in the region, Preston noted.
More people congregating at the complex to shoot could cut down on the amount of “wild target” practice at random locations on Bureau of Land Management parcels, he said.
“I know of at least two golden eagle nests that were abandoned on BLM land because of target shooting near the nests, and the shooters didn’t even realize that the nests were there,” he said.
Noise Sensitive
Bedrosian said that the shooting complex site is “amazing foraging territory” for eagles.
But once the shooting starts, they probably won’t hang around.
“Eagles will avoid people and gunshots,” he said.
That could be because, as a species, golden eagles associate gunfire with death.
“The No. 1 cause of death in golden eagles is persecution, and people shooting them,” he said.
It’s illegal to shoot golden eagles, but if enough people have done it over the years, a fear of gunshots might have imprinted on the raptors, he said.
It could be that “the birds that have avoided (gunfire) have survived” and so the species started to favor staying away from people with firearms, he said.
Wildlife In Mind
Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, was one of the driving forces behind getting the state shooting complex approved and partially funded through the Wyoming Legislature.
He said as plans were being laid, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department was consulted about possible effects on wildlife.
Eagles never came up during those discussions, but measures will be taken to help protect such wildlife as mule deer and sage grouse at the site, he said.
“Wildlife-friendly fencing,” designed to be easier for deer to pass through, will replace old fences on some of the property.
And the schedule of shooting competitions might be shifted to keep them from disturbing sage grouse leks, or mating grounds, during mating season.
The site is also on mule deer winter range, but human activity at the shooting complex should be greatly diminished during the winter.
The area is also crisscrossed with numerous “two tracks,” popular with off-road vehicle riders. That means the wildlife there is already at least somewhat adapted to human activity, Hicks said.
The shooting complex’s joint powers board will also take “an adaptive management strategy” moving forward, Hicks said.
That means there will be room to change or alter new development on the shooting complex grounds to continue protecting wildlife.
Lead-Free Education?
One way to offset the habitat loss to eagles at the shooting complex might be to include educational programs there, encouraging hunters to switch to lead-free ammunition, Preston said.
That would lessen the chances of eagles dying from lead poisoning across Wyoming, he said.
“I’ve been using copper ammo to hunt big game for years and I haven’t noticed any loss in ballistic performance or effectiveness at all,” Preston said.
Hicks said that education will be part of the program at the shooting complex.
He’s not opposed to teaching about the benefits of using lead-free hunting ammo being included in that, particularly if it was offered by a private or nonprofit organization.
“If we have a high raptor concentration in certain areas, then lead-free ammo for hunting is a good idea,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
