HELENA, Mont. - Erosion by wind and water is a big part of the story at Makoshika State Park, a place of badlands and dinosaur fossils, bobcats and bluebirds. Now some people who enjoy firing guns there fear erosion of what they've come to view as an entitlement.

The state parks agency expects to eliminate a decades-old rifle range at Makoshika, a rolling expanse of eastern Montana with peculiar sandstone formations, cactus, wildflowers and a world-class triceratops skull recovered in 1991. The 11,500-acre park gets about 54,000 visits a year and is a popular place for trail walks, camping, even weddings. It also is popular among gun enthusiasts in Glendive, a high-plains town about a quarter-mile from the rifle range and its plywood targets.

"Things have changed," said Tom Reilly, an assistant administrator in the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks. "Now we have a visitor center on one side (of the range) and a public campground on the other."

Shooting may disturb people who "come from New Jersey to camp and wake up to gunfire," he said "We may be used to that, living here, but others may not be."

Fish, Wildlife and Parks' new, 10-year management plan for Makoshika calls for moving the shooting range somewhere else. A state committee is searching for a different site, but has not settled on one.

Relocating worries Glendive shooters such as Ernest Huether, who sells and repairs guns. He worries the alternative to the state range will be a private one, with fees and a less convenient location. Having a vehicle with a Montana license covers admission to Makoshika and other state parks, through a $4 annual surcharge on vehicle registrations.

Another shooter, Henry Mischel of the Dawson County Rod & Gun Club, said state planners should keep in mind that guns are a traditional part of life in Montana. His response to perhaps alarming visitors: "I don't like the sound of sirens when I go to a big city, but I have to deal with it."

Mischel said the rifle range emerged from "a gentlemen's agreement" and has existed at least for the 50 years he has lived in Glendive. On a busy day, the range - passed by visitors heading to the park's interior - draws dozens of shooters carrying handguns and rifles.

The new Makoshika plan, prepared after study of recommendations from a public advisory group, was approved in late 2005 by Jeff Hagener, director of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

In Helena on Monday, the state commission overseeing the agency will take up an appeal by John N. Haas of Glendive, who has challenged removal of the range. Eliminating it might be OK were there a suitable replacement, but one has not been found, Haas said.

"I'm not sure that a suitable replacement site exists - it depends on what is defined as suitable," he wrote in the appeal. And without an alternative site, he said, "future development within the park cannot successfully be planned around a faulty assumption that the range will be moved."

Shooters are left to protect their interests by opposing any park work that could affect the future of the range, Haas said. Potential work outlined in the management plan includes trail and road improvements, burial of power lines and new interpretive displays.

There have been no reports of accidents or close calls associated with the range, but the plan says "the possibility of a misfire" into a populated area cannot be ignored.