Category Archives: Nevada

Sage Grouse Under Fire

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Sage Grouse vs transmission linesA US Fish and Wildlife Service report says that sage grouse are threatened by the loss and fragmentation of their sagebrush habitat. The habitat is being lost most commonly to wildfires which burn hotter because of invasive species. Ironically, another cause of habitat loss in the invasion of conifers into the sagebrush ecosystem, which is caused when fires don’t occur frequently enough.

A Wyoming Public Media report says that the USFWS report doesn’t tell people what to do, it just explains the threats.

A press release from the American Bird Conservancy says that the Bureau of Land Management should pay attention to the report.

You can find the 115-page report here.

In related news, the Idaho Statesman reports on an effort by a Nevada county on a local ranch to kill ravens with poison eggs and to reduce wildfires by increasing livestock grazing. The goal is to increase the number of sage grouse and stave off an endangered species listing.

The county does not expect support from the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the article reports, and has already drawn the ire of a regional environmental group. The article says:

“Their fixation on killing and poisoning native wildlife and turning lands back into a dustbowl is really twisted,” said Katie Fite, the biodiversity director for the Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project.

Photo: Greater sage grouse by Stephen Ting. Courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

 

 

Nevada Wildlife Director Gone — Again

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAKen Mayer, director of the Nevada Department of Wildlife, resigned “abruptly” last week, at the governor’s request. It was the second time he has left the position as the state’s wildlife director in the last three years. In 2010 he was dismissed by a departing governor, only to be reinstated by the incoming governor, Brian Sandoval, the same governor who asked for his resignation this time.

It’s clear that the true conflict is with the Nevada Wildlife Commission. An Associated Press article in the Reno Gazette-Journal suggests that the commission supports outdated wildlife management techniques, such as using predator control to boost game populations.

Is it a simple case of science versus politics, or are there other issues? Unless someone in the Nevada media chooses to dig in to the matter, it’s unlikely that we’ll know the full story.

Read the Reno Gazette-Journal article here.

There’s another article in the Reno Gazette-Journal that talks about the implications of Mayer’s departure for the conservation of sage grouse, but it is a little confusing because at first, it talks about listing the sage grouse as a federally endangered species as a goal harmed by Mayer’s departure, without mentioning — until the second page of the article — that the states have been working hard to enact conservation methods to keep sage grouse off the federal endangered species list. Whew. You can read that second Reno Gazette-Journal article here.

Photo: Ken Mayer, courtesy Nevada Dept. of Wildlife

Not Seeing Spots

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A designation as endangered or threatened for the Western population of the northern leopard frog was deemed “not warranted” by the US Fish and Wildlife Service late last year.

According to a US Forest Service report, the northern leopard frog is, however, “listed as a sensitive species by the Northern (Region 1) and Rocky Mountain (Region 2) regions of the USFS, and by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) state offices in Wyoming and Colorado.”

The report also notes that, “Northern leopard frogs are considered to be of special concern in Idaho, Colorado, Indiana, and Connecticut, while Montana considers it endangered on the western side of the Continental Divide and of special concern to the east. It is protected in Oregon and classified as endangered in Washington.”

There are some dozen species of leopard frog, and sometimes there is confusion in sorting them out, as the discovery of a new species of leopard frog in New York City, announced in March, shows.

A close look at Northern leopard frog populations in Nevada, published in the journal Ecology and Evolution in July, showed that the two remaining populations in the western part of the state are genetically distinct from populations in the eastern part of the state.

The work shows the difficulty of Northern leopard frog conservation.

Read the paper in Ecology and Evolution. (A fee or subscription is required.)

Photo: Northern leopard frog, from the western population in Arizona. Credit:Shaula Hedwall/USFWS

 

Nevada Pulls Up PVC Stakes to Save Birds

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PVC pipes are cheap, light and visible from a distance. They are used all over the country as stakes to mark everything from foundation contours to mining claims. In Nevada, it’s the mining claim stakes that are the problem.

Ground nesting and cavity nesting birds are flying into the pipes, thinking they are nesting sites. But the birds don’t get out, because the pipes’ smooth interior doesn’t give them anything to grab on to. The Red Rock Audubon Society says that thousands of birds have died in Nevada in these PVC pipes. They say that bees and lizards are also trapped and die in the pipes.

It’s been illegal to mark a mining claim with an uncapped PVC pipe in Nevada since 1993, but the law has been ineffective. A new state law, SB 108, took effect last week. It allows citizens to remove upright, uncapped PVC pipes on inactive mining claims or place the stake on the ground nearby if the claim is active.

Read about the hazards of PVC pipe markers from the Red Rock Audubon Society. News of the bill’s passing is here.

Read an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the new law.

Here’s the text of the law as it was actually enacted.  You can see the whole history of the bill, including the wording when it was introduced, here.

The law requires that the pipes, whether metal or PVC, be capped or crimped at the top. Comments on the Review-Journal article point out that filling the pipes with dirt would also protect birds, bees and lizards from the pipes too. Claim holders had three years to cap or crimp their pipes before the clause that allows citizens to pull them up took effect.

Photo: plerophoria67 on Flickr

Nevada Pulls Up PVC Stakes to Save Birds

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PVC pipes are cheap, light and visible from a distance. They are used all over the country as stakes to mark everything from foundation contours to mining claims. In Nevada, it’s the mining claim stakes that are the problem.

Ground nesting and cavity nesting birds are flying into the pipes, thinking they are nesting sites. But the birds don’t get out, because the pipes’ smooth interior doesn’t give them anything to grab on to. The Red Rock Audubon Society says that thousands of birds have died in Nevada in these PVC pipes. They say that bees and lizards are also trapped and die in the pipes.

It’s been illegal to mark a mining claim with an uncapped PVC pipe in Nevada since 1993, but the law has been ineffective. A new state law, SB 108, took effect last week. It allows citizens to remove upright, uncapped PVC pipes on inactive mining claims or place the stake on the ground nearby if the claim is active.

Read about the hazards of PVC pipe markers from the Red Rock Audubon Society. News of the bill’s passing is here.

Read an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the new law.

Here’s the text of the law as it was actually enacted.  You can see the whole history of the bill, including the wording when it was introduced, here.

The law requires that the pipes, whether metal or PVC, be capped or crimped at the top. Comments on the Review-Journal article point out that filling the pipes with dirt would also protect birds, bees and lizards from the pipes too. Claim holders had three years to cap or crimp their pipes before the clause that allows citizens to pull them up took effect.

Photo: plerophoria67 on Flickr

Facebook for Bears

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In Incline Village, Nevada, on Lake Tahoe, a group has created a Facebook page to post photos of local businesses who leave their garbage bins unlocked. The town had been plagued by bears earlier this year, leading to the controversial killing of one bear. The Facebook group believes that the unsecured dumpsters were the main thing that were attracting the bears into town.

Apparently, the idea has worked, and the page is now more focused on stopping a local bear hunt and on residential garbage lapses. A status message on the page says that local businesses have not protested or given the group a hard time about the public shaming.

Here’s the Associated Press story, as it appeared in the Deseret News (which, yes, is in Utah, but the story is the same no matter what publication you read it in).

Here’s the background on the large, unstoppable bear that was creating havoc earlier this year, again from the AP, as posted by Fox40.

And finally, here’s the Lake Tahoe Wall of Shame Facebook page. 1,013 people liked it when this item was posted.

Will public shaming work for your unsecured garbage problem? The fact that this is a citizens’ group, and not an government entity makes all the difference, I think. I’m actually surprised that this worked at all, but all the more power to this group for solving the problem quickly and with seemingly few hard feelings.

Photo: Just a random black bear, courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service

Nevada Law Lets Gov Appoint Wildlife Director

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A bill signed into law this week in Nevada means that the state’s governor will have more of a say in who the state’s wildlife director will be. Previously, the Nevada governor needed to select a wildlife director from among the candidates submitted by the state’s Wildlife Commission. The new law eliminates that restriction on the governor’s appointment.

Read more about the new law in this article in The Danbury (Ct.) News-Times (Why a Connecticut outlet ran this Associated Press story on Nevada when few other outlets did is beyond me.) It also had the news when the bill passed the Nevada legislature.

The Daily Sparks Tribune has some of the background of the dust-up between governor and director that lead to the bill.