I have a great place to sight in my rifle and shoot in the same place that I hunt frequently, how will the animals that are in close enough proximity react to the shooting? Will they avoid the area or just get used to it? I haven't done much plinking but have shot a few rounds to sight in my rifle.

younghunter, There are not many groundhogsleft here to react to my shooting! However, I have a 100,200,300,400 yard range set up and frequently when I am shooting the 100 or 200 yard targets, there will be anywhere from 2-10 whitetails grazing in the fields past the 200 yard target or 100 yards behind the shooting bench while I am shooting. They have become accustomed to the sound of the gunfire and don't associate it with imminent danger! However also, I will mention that the deer are almost always does and yearlings and a wall hanger is a little more cautious!! I can recall a day with a couple people here where I had an 8 point and 2 six points eating while we were shooting and they did not seem to pay any attention! The 8 point should have! My 13 year old daughter killed him with her 260 from 271 yards during the season a couple months later! He was 17 inches and pretty symmetrical. Not a bad first buck for a young hunter!! GHD

That is a good question. I find that it depends on 1) Type of animal you are talking about and 2) how much human traffic noise exists in that area now.

I've had similar experiances as groundhog has.Wildlife around the rifle range act very non-chalant towards the shooting around them.

The only animal I know of that react to gun fire are bears. They find gut piles and associate the gun fire with food. So if you live in bear country limit your shooting to rifle ranges away from bear habitat.

I think that game east of the big river are so accustom to noise: cars, chain saws, planes, heavy equipment, window bulging rap music as well as weather noises that I think they view rifle fire as another sort of thunder or such. That is if they haven't had dirt blown in their faces or been burnt by a bullet. Last fall I had some white tail does browsing between my bench and the target butt and was actually shooting over their back by only a couple of feet or less. They ignored it. Either that or they know what kind of shot I am.

When shooting ground squirrels I have found that they come out to see what all the noise is and if you don't slam car doors, speak loudly, or laugh then they don't associate it with humans.

Maybe this is a little off topic. My range has lots of chickens running all over the place. Sometimes they wander around in front of the benches. First time I saw this I thought they wouldn't hang around long, but they didn't even flinch, even with big, braked Mag rifles going off a few feet away. They're either deaf or acclimated.

And a note on bears: As a DNR official in BC, my father-in-law was curious how a bear would react to a shot so he put a round from his 06 into the water 3 feet from the bear. This was from across a lake, maybe 100 yards away. The bear didn't seem to notice or even acknowledge the bang or the splash of water. For whatever that's worth.