Three visitors to the national park were accused of playing with slingshots and paint guns

It started with a ranger patrolling Joshua Tree National Park and coming across “fresh yellow paintball splatter on structures and signs.”

Searching for it revealed several such splashes in various parts of the park, which spans 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 the National Park Service (NPS) released on August 8, the vehicle contained “three slingshots, a paintball marker, paintballs and other related equipment as evidence.”

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The car was occupied by three German tourists, who were later each given a federal violation notice for vandalizing, defacing or destroying park property. The maximum penalty for the violation is a $5,000 fine and up to six months in prison.

“Using time and resources that could be better spent on other priorities”

Park rangers found a total of 11 signs at various points between Park Boulevard and Jumbo Rocks Campground. Throughout the weekend, park workers cleaned up the graffiti in daily temperatures that topped 100°F.

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“Deforming 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 about the incident. “It diminishes the natural environment that millions of people travel the world to enjoy. The park is regularly tasked with removing all types of graffiti, using time and resources that could be better spent on other priorities.”

The NPS also reiterated the warning that “paintball markers and slingshots are legally considered weapons and are prohibited on National Park Service lands.”

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Here are some of the other incidents that will take place in the national parks

Every year, a certain number of tourists are caught doing illegal and often dangerous things in the country’s 63 national parks.

In April, a Yellowstone National Park visitor was caught kicking a bison near the park’s west entrance. The bison responded and Clarence Yoder, 40, 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 area in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park and took several early settlement-era artifacts from an education center. The practice of removing artifacts from public lands is referred to as “archaeological theft.”

In June, a Washington man was also banned from Yellowstone National Park for two years for trespassing to get too close to the Steamboat geothermal geyser, while another recently received a lifetime ban from at the Grand Canyon after leading twice as many people to an illegal rafting exhibition. in 2023.

One of the strangest incidents happened in Michigan, when 63-year-old Michigan resident Andrew Howard was convicted of diverting a river from a national park at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore.

The park authorities had earlier taken the decision to stop dredging the river for environmental reasons. Howard was annoyed that this cut off his access to him and decided to take matters into his own hands.

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