Timber improvement work underway at the Missouri Department of Conservation’s (MDC) Flag Spring Conservation Area (CA) in Barry County will cause a temporary closure of a portion of the unstaffed shooting range at this area.
Beginning Monday, April 14, the rifle/pistol portion of the range will be closed. This closure will continue until April 24, at which time the range will resume regular hours.
The shotgun range, which is located on another part of the area, will remain open. The shotgun portion of the Flag Spring unstaffed range is designed for shooting sporting clays and is not designed for patterning shotguns for turkey hunting.
The work currently underway at Flag Spring CA is timber stand improvement (TSI). This is a habitat management strategy in which some larger trees in an area are removed to promote the growth of smaller trees and other vegetation.
Sixty acres of the TSI work being done at Flag Spring CA are in the shooting range’s safety zone. Flag Spring CA is located in Barry and McDonald counties. The shooting range lies in the Barry County portion of the area.
The goal of this work is to improve habitat at the conservation area for various species of wildlife. A lack of management leads to overcrowded forests with insufficient sunlight that reaches the forest floor.
Thinning the timber in a strategic fashion will promote adequate cover and forage for wildlife, regenerate new trees, and create more sustainable forest structures.
MDC operates a number of unstaffed shooting ranges across the state that offer firearms and/or archery opportunities. Some of these unstaffed ranges are archery-only sites.
MDC unstaffed ranges in southwest Missouri that have firearms opportunities can be found at Fort Crowder Conservation Area (Newton County), Busiek State Forest and Wildlife Area (Christian County), and Lead Mine Conservation Area (Dallas County).
Leave a Reply