Neighbor News
Rifle Hunting Season set to open in Angeles National Forest on October 11
Los Angeles County firearms restrictions maps, codes, and other difficult-to-find resources
Rifle season for deer hunting opens in our local mountains on October 11. As of October 3, the most recent date for data from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, there were 3,222 deer tags available for purchase for the hunting zone D-11, which includes much of the Angeles National Forest.
Hunting is legal in most of the forest, with the exception of some recreation areas, delineated by the County of Los Angeles in 1929 as no firearms zones, without hunter exceptions. These red zones in the County map include the popular Chilao Recreation Complex, and several other high-use recreation areas.
The most current update of the map in our possession is from 2014. A pdf of the map can be downloaded for free from the top of this page of the Redbird website:
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https://www.redbirdsvisions.or...
Until 1994, maps of our local hunting and wilderness areas contained multiple agency data. Los Angeles County firearms restrictions could be found on maps issued by the California Department of Fish and Game, as it was then known. Why that changed after 1994 is not clear, but finding current versions of the map is difficult at best. The 2014 version was provided by CalTrans District 7, which maintains California State Highway 2 in the Angeles National Forest.
Find out what's happening in La Cañada Flintridgefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
The map is an extremely useful tool, but it is considered a reference, not a legal document. The written descriptions that delineate the red zones are that which have legal precedence. That verbiage can be found here:
Hunters using OnX will find a different source for ordinances and regulations listed at the bottom of the rules and guidelines for zone D-11.
While the County of Los Angeles does maintain a Fish and Wildlife Commission website, it primarily functions as a pass-through to the California Department of Fish and Game without specifically noting its own regulations, or providing a link to those regulations, or providing the firearms restrictions map. This lack of information is often perceived as being evidence that County firearms regulations no longer exist.
We hope to bring clarity to this situation by encouraging the County to make their regulations, and the associated maps, available to the general public through their website. We have also listed the County Fish and Wildlife Commission's website on our web page.