The Iowa DNR has temporarily closed the public shooting range at Bay’s Branch State Wildlife Area near Panora.
Wildlife Biologist Josh Gansen, who oversees the area, says workers stumbled upon some potential safety issues with the area while making improvements to it this week. “It was kind of an unplanned deal. We were there to do some maintenance and were able to potentially get some free dirt from the County to add to the backstops. In the meantime, we discovered some issues more serious than that. We’ve got some bullets leaving the range and that’s not a good thing, because the rest of that area is public hunting ground and people walk around. Some of that is misuse and people intentonally shooting over the backstops, but some of it may be because the backstops aren’t high enough.”
Gansen adds the range will reopen once DNR employees make the necessary safety improvements, though he doesn’t yet have a solid timetable of when that will happen.
Raccoon Valley Radio will bring you more information as it becomes official.