Rumble in Paradise

There’s a feud smoldering in this rural ranching community on the far north fringe of Los Angeles County, where hunting has been a way of life for generations.

Residents scattered among the pines and oaks on Liebre Mountain are up in arms over a neighbor, an 8,000-acre preserve where sportsmen come from far and wide to shoot game birds “planted” in grassy fields.

After a 22-month battle before the Los Angeles Regional Planning Commission, the High Desert Hunt Club in June won permits to conduct public “shoots” during eight months of the year on 35 fields throughout the rolling terrain.

Three hunters and a dog handler work each of the 150- to 200-acre fields. For $375 apiece, the hunters get to pursue a mixed bag of pen-raised game fowl: 10 bobwhite quail, six chukar and three pheasants.

The birds are released at daybreak into the fields by club employees, to be flushed out later by trained bird-dogs.

Neighbors say the constant “Va-Booms” of shotguns reverberate up the mountainside and echo off canyon walls. They say the tranquil ambience of their isolated lifestyle is being destroyed. And they say they’re not going to take it anymore.

On Wednesday, the band of angry residents filed an appeal with the county Board of Supervisors, and vowed to carry their battle to the courts if necessary.

“They have taken the most pristine area of Los Angeles County and all of a sudden turned it into a shooting range,” complained Louis Bell, a semiretired Beverly Hills attorney who lives part time on his 1,100-acre ranch adjacent to the hunt club. “We come here for the peace and serenity, to listen to the birds and the sound of wind in the pines. But that spell is broken by the sound of gunfire.”

The club, 50 miles north of the San Fernando Valley off Highway 138 east of Interstate 5, is one of only four such clubs in Southern California. It encompasses 12 1/2 square miles of the southernmost portion of the privately owned Tejon Ranch, which sprawls across 432 square miles from Gorman almost to Bakersfield and is roughly the size of the city of Los Angeles.

The club is one of the few in the nation that includes a field for European-style shoots, a sport rapidly growing in popularity in the United States, according to a spokeswoman for the North American Gamebird Assn. In the European shoots, as many as 100 hunters stand stationary in a field and fire simultaneously at flocks of pheasants as they are released from higher up a slope.

Most residents say they, too, enjoy hunting. But they object to the commercial hunting area and its concentration of gunfire.

“We all have to use power equipment from time to time, and that’s accepted,” said Larry Myers, a neighbor of the hunt club. “But if I wanted to set up a commercial logging operation, everyone here would come unglued.”

“I don’t think we have ever disputed the fact that gunfire and noise is going to happen,” countered Lisa McNamee of Costa Mesa, who operates the Irvine-based club with her father and other family members. But she contends the fields are far enough from residences that the sounds are barely noticeable, if audible at all.

Aside from the noise issue, opponents have an arsenal of other complaints. They say they fear club activities could trigger catastrophic wildfires in an area that hasn’t burned since the 1920s. They also say gunfire could endanger hikers and spook horses using the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,650-mile national scenic trail that winds along the eastern boundary of the hunting grounds.

“This whole thing has gotten out of hand,” said McNamee. “We feel like we bent over backward to accommodate the [planning] staff. We have tried to negotiate with the neighbors. But they just are not willing to negotiate.”

McNamee cites 18 pages of conditions imposed by the county and agreed to by the club as proof of the club’s willingness to cooperate. The club must abide by county noise regulations, for example, as well as post warning signs along the national wilderness trail and establish buffer zones to separate hunters from the trail and nearby homes.

Despite months of efforts by planners to quiet the controversy, the battle is escalating. In one of their most recent volleys, adjacent ranchers and landowners contended that the hunting operation could fare just as well elsewhere on Tejon Ranch where there are no neighbors and little danger of fire.

“The real question we ask is ‘Why?’ ” Bell said. “Why would they take the southernmost portion of the property in one of the most beautiful, spectacular sections of Los Angeles County, destroy this valley and endanger the population and property all along the ridge, from Three Points into Lake Hughes? Why would they ever want to do that?”

But McNamee calls the club site “the finest upland game habitat in the state of California.”

“The Tejon Ranch does not have any piece on the rest of their property that looks like this,” she said. “It is absolutely beautiful, and perfect for a hunt club.”

The battle has drawn equal numbers of supporters and opponents. The Planning Commission received 154 letters--77 in support of the club and 77 opposing it. It also received three petitions--two, with a total of 123 signatures, urging commissioners to approve permits for the hunt club, and one, with 141 signatures, asking that permits be denied.

Neighbors make up most of the opposition; supporters include a cross-section of hunters, recreation enthusiasts and environmental groups. The Sierra Club, historical groups, wilderness trail users and the state Department of Fish and Game have all voiced support.

A key argument among supporters is that the club offers the best hope of preserving the property in its natural state.

Tejon “could build golf courses or housing tracts on it, or it can be left in its native state for the next 30 years,” McNamee said.

The club also expects to increase the local game bird population because hunters often miss their targets. Water “guzzlers” are installed throughout the property to support the bird population.

According to McNamee, the club has a 30-year lease under which it makes payments and shares revenues with Tejon Ranch. She declined to reveal more specific details of the agreement.

Opponents say they suspect the agreement contains provisions allowing ranch owners to regain control of the property when they are ready to develop it--before the lease is up. Bell said he was told as much by a Tejon official.

Historical groups praise the hunt club for renovating an old adobe built by Edward Fitzgerald Beale, a government courier and surveyor who amassed vast land holdings in the late 1800s. The adobe, nestled in an oak grove near a natural pond, serves as the clubhouse. Two trailers are nearby, one for serving meals and another for processing killed birds.

Just 1 1/2 years old, the club is only beginning to build its reputation. “We hope that this becomes a very exclusive club,” McNamee said. “We hope that people come from all over California. We want to run the best club in the Western United States.”

A wildly popular club is precisely what neighbors fear. Although the area has always been hunted, access to outsiders has been limited.

Myers and his wife moved a year ago from a Marina del Rey townhouse to a 25-acre ranch. Tucked into a picturesque slope on Mount Liebre and abutting the Angeles National Forest, the ranch has two houses and a scattering of cabins. A pastor and musician, Myers said he plans to use the idyllic hideaway, called Robinson Canyon Ranch, as a retreat for artists and musicians.

“We were looking for a place out of the city that would be quiet,” Myers said, standing in a tidy rose-lined garden with a gurgling fountain and a hammock slung between two poplars. “This ranch is more than we ever dreamed of.”

But he soon found the quietpunctuated with popping noises. Just a quarter-mile away are the hunting fields. Myers said he knew the club was operating with only temporary permission pending approval of its permits when he purchased his property. He said he felt confident permits would be denied.

“I couldn’t believe the county would go ahead and approve them,” Myers said.

Jane Randall of Palmdale bought 250 acres of hilly terrain adjoining the Tejon Ranch in the 1980s, planning to eventually develop it into an Arabian horse breeding farm. Hunting fields now abut her property line, with no provisions for a buffer zone. A hunt club sign posted on her property mistakenly claims a portion of her land as hunting grounds, she said.

“We feel like no one is listening to us,” Randall said.

Neighbors recently gathered at Bell’s ranch to fire shotguns and tape record the noise at various distances, hoping it would prove how sound travels through the quiet neighborhood.

But they were disappointed as they listened to the recording. The tape could not duplicate the concussions sensed by humans.

McNamee has a final word for opponents. Pointing out that Tejon Ranch pays $125,000 in annual property taxes to Los Angeles County, she asks, “What would they like Tejon to do, pay the taxes every year and not use the property?

“It’s not going to happen.”