NPS: Tourists Went on Paintball Spree at Joshua Tree

Three German tourists are personae non gratae at Joshua Tree National Park after the National Park Service says they were caught red-handed (or, in this case, yellow-handed) following a paintball vandalism spree. Citing a release, KTLA reports that a ranger making the rounds in the Southern California park on Aug. 4 spotted "fresh yellow paintball splatter" on various signs, dumpsters, bathroom facilities, and other structures around the park, and that when other rangers were called in to assist, they spotted a slingshot "in plain view inside a vehicle."

When confronted, the occupants of the vehicle "admitted to firing paintballs with a compressed paintball gun, known as a paintball marker, and slingshots the night before," the release notes. Rangers say they found more slingshots and other paintball paraphernalia inside the vehicle. "Defacing or altering the NPS landscape, no matter how small, is against the law," Jeff Filosa, the park's acting chief ranger, said in a statement. "It diminishes the natural environment that millions of people travel the world to enjoy." Filosa added that the time and energy spent cleaning up the tourists' mess could have been "better dedicated to other priorities."

The NPS notes that graffiti such as this is expensive and "extremely difficult" to remedy inside its parks, per the BBC. The New York Times reports that Joshua Tree has faced its own particular challenges in recent years: In addition to 2020 wildfires that burned more than 1 million of the park's signature yuccas, vandals also went to town there in 2019 during a partial government shutdown. The park service said the suspected vandals in this latest case were given a federal violation notice for "vandalizing, defacing, or destroying property," which could bring a possible prison sentence of six months and a fine of up to $5,000. (More Joshua Tree stories.)