It began with a ranger who was patrolling Joshua Tree National Park and came across “fresh yellow paintball splatter on structures and signs.”
Looking out for it further unveiled more such splatters in different parts of the park spanning the Mojave and Colorado deserts and eventually to a car full of paint guns, slingshots and other paraphernalia for a vandalism spree worthy of a movie. According to a notice that the National Park Service (NPS) put out on Aug. 8, the vehicle contained “three slingshots, a paintball marker, paintballs, and other related equipment as evidence.”
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The car was being occupied by three German tourists who were subsequently each given a federal violation notice for vandalizing, defacing, or destroying park property. The maximum sentence for the violation is a $5,000 fine and up to six months in prison.
‘Using time and resources that could be better dedicated to other priorities’
Park rangers found a total of 11 signs at different points between Park Boulevard and Jumbo Rocks Campground. Throughout the weekend, park workers have been cleaning up the graffiti in daily temperatures edging toward 100°F.
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“Defacing or altering the NPS landscape, no matter how small, is against the law,” Joshua Tree National Park Acting Chief Ranger Jeff Filosa said in a statement on the incident. “It diminishes the natural environment that millions of people travel the world to enjoy. The park is regularly tasked with removing graffiti of all types, using time and resources that could be better dedicated to other priorities.”
The NPS also reiterated the warning that “paintball markers and slingshots are legally considered weapons and are prohibited in National Park Service-administered lands.”
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Here are some of the other incidents to occur in national parks
Every year, a certain number of tourists get caught doing illegal and often dangerous things in the country’s 63 national parks.
Back in April, a visitor to Yellowstone National Park was caught kicking a bison near the park’s western entrance. The bison responded back and 40-year-old Clarence Yoder was taken to a nearby hospital before being cited for driving under the influence and approaching and disturbing wildlife.
A few weeks later, the NPS asked for the public’s help in identifying a couple who entered a closed-off area in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park and took several artifacts from the early settlement era from an educational center. The practice of removing artifacts from public lands is referred to as “archeological theft.”
In June, a Washington man was also banned from Yellowstone National Park for two years for trespassing to get too close to the geothermal Steamboat Geyser while another one was recently given a lifetime ban from the Grand Canyon after leading multiple people to an illegal rafting exhibition twice in 2023.
One of the strangest incidents occurred in Michigan when 63-year-old Michigan resident Andrew Howard was convicted of diverting a national park river at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.
Park authorities had earlier made the decision to stop dredging the river over environmental considerations. Howard was annoyed at this cutting off his access to it and decided to take matters into his own hands.
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