Southern Nevada Mule Deer Foundation

Nevada Officials Seek Help In Solving Rash of Big Game Killings
Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) game wardens are investigating a rash of illegally killed big game animals around the Reno area over the past month, and are seeking the public's help to solve these poaching cases.

"We've been swamped," said Rob Buonamici, chief game warden at NDOW. "Between many cases locally and multiple poachings near Elko, we are on track for a very bad year for illegal killings."

The latest case is a yearling doe shot in the head and left to waste at Bedell Flat behind Redrock, near the California border. The animal was discovered November 15, and game wardens are looking for anyone who was in the area in the very early morning hours of that day who might have witnessed the crime.

In another case a buck was shot and left to rot in the Truckee River near the Mustang exit off Interstate 80. Only the antlers of the animal were taken. The animal was discovered November 6th. Game wardens hope some of the construction workers or visitors to the nearby nature conservancy project might have seen something unusual in the area.

There were several other cases over the last month, including two mule deer bucks and one male antelope. All the animals were shot and left to rot in several areas around Reno.

"We worry when we have so many similar crimes right in our back yard," said Buonamici. "If these criminals are getting this brave around populated areas, we can only guess at the crimes going on in Nevada's far flung places."

Concerned people with information can contact Operation Game Thief at (800) 992-3030. Callers can remain anonymous and rewards are paid for information that leads to the conviction of those responsible wildlife crime.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) protects, restores and manages fish and wildlife, promotes fishing, hunting, and boating safety. NDOW's wildlife and habitat conservation efforts are primarily funded by sportsmen's license and conservation fees and a federal surcharge on hunting and fishing gear. Support wildlife and habitat conservation in Nevada by purchasing a hunting, fishing, or combination license. For more information, visit www.ndow.org.
Contact:
Edwin Lyngar (775) 688-1548

How to Volunteer for a Conservation Organization
MISSOULA, Mont.-Whether they work individually or as part of a group, volunteers are essential to conservation today-even more so tomorrow.

That's the consensus of conservation professionals who predict that fish, wildlife and habitat, as well as the future of America's sporting traditions, will depend more and more on devoted souls whose only paycheck is the personal reward of preserving traditional values and passing on a cherished way of life.

Volunteerism spans from teaching a neighbor kid to cast at a nearby pond to serving on a board that directs policy for international wildlife habitat initiatives.

A conservation organization can be an effective channel for many volunteer passions.

Here's how to get involved:

1.Consider why you're interested in volunteering. Do you want to make a difference in the world, or in your own corner of the outdoors? Is it about building your own skills and social network? Or are you simply inspired to give something back to a special place, species or heritage? These questions can help you choose the right organization.

2. Select an outfit that represents something special to you. If your pulse quickens at the thought of mallards over decoys, an elk bugling from a golden stand of aspens, a bass exploding on a topwater lure, there's a group for you. Ditto if you're concerned about Second Amendment issues. Maybe you believe that youths in your community should know more about handling firearms safely, or how hunting and angling pay for conservation. Or perhaps you're just worried about the kudzu infestation in the back pasture of your hunting club. Whatever your interest, there's probably a good fit for you somewhere out there. If not, start something new.

3. Speak with staff or volunteers from the organization and ask what opportunities exist for newcomers as well as experienced volunteers. Attend a meeting to see how the group interacts. At its best, volunteering is a selfless act for a greater good, but everyone wants to feel appropriately appreciated-find out how the outfit says thank you.

4. Seek out volunteer tasks that suit you. Conservation always needs money but if soliciting donations isn't your cup of tea, consider helping setup for a fundraising event or even a back-office gig stuffing envelopes. Maybe you'd rather install aquatic habitat or remove decrepit fencing from a big-game migration corridor. Of course, it's fun to learn new things and there's real satisfaction in completing less pleasant tasks, but it pays to ensure your core duties will be compatible with your time and talent.

5. Start small. If you already have a busy schedule, commitments at home or unpredictable work hours, you can still get involved. In fact, most organizations want volunteers who are busy people because busy people know how to get things done. See about working for only an hour or two per week or perhaps one day per month. Later, if you find you enjoy the work and have more time to pursue it, gradually take on more.

6. Ask, don't demand. People in charge of organizing volunteers are often volunteers themselves, but, invariably, they're working to meet certain goals with a bigger mission in mind. Especially if you're just starting out, the best bet is simply assimilating into their system. Later on, if you see that it could work better, make suggestions on how to fix it.

7. Ask questions and do research, but until you get your feet wet, you won't know if volunteering for a particular organization is really right for you.

Volunteering allows a person to make a lasting mark on conservation, leave America's outdoors as-or better than-they found it, and hand down a meaningful personal legacy to their children and grandchildren.

It matters not whether you get involved individually or as part of a group. The important thing is just getting started.

Sooner the better.

No Treats This Halloween
We're starting to ring down the curtain on what has been, by many accounts, a tough year for our industry. With the exception of some boom-times in firearms and ammunition (and that bubble has started to deflate somewhat), times have been tough.

Overlooked in the economic hubbub is the toll a bad economy takes on wildlife advocacy groups. Many depend solely on memberships and donations for their revenues. For many of those groups, the numbers have dropped - some precipitously. In fact, I'm hearing the numbers at a couple of the larger and more active groups have dropped as much as fifty percent. That is a serious knock on even their bottom lines.

For some groups, there are other problems, including costly litigation with ousted former executives. Quail Unlimited, the oldest and largest of the quail groups, is under criminal investigation by the ATF unaccounted firearms; those investigations and management problems have splintered that organization, left it without an executive management team, and have state QU groups vowing to fix the organization - even if it means starting from scratch. In the meantime, the organization as surviving - but is essentially ineffective nationally.

While their situation is unusual, membership losses have led many groups to reduce staff and cutback on programs. Their ongoing wildlife programs have been invaluable resources to many state wildlife agencies also feeling budget squeezes.

Yesterday, I spoke with David Allen, President and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation about the situation. Allen was candid about the problems many organizations face. After all, he told me, RMEF had faced many of their own "challenges" over the past few years. RMEF, he says, is regaining momentum - and members - by focusing on realities and their core constituency -hunter conservationists.

"Some groups have been living beyond their means," he said, "you can't live in anticipation of money. Here, for example, I tell the staff 'we won't spend money we don't have'. It meant downsizing our undertakings and cutting expenses, but it is just an economic reality."

Allen says finances aren't the single biggest challenge facing organizations. That, he says, is a one-word threat: complacency. Complacency, he says, is reflected in the fact that there are 1,000,000 elk tags sold annually - but only twenty percent of those hunters are RMEF members. While it's unrealistic to presume all off them would ever become RMEF members, Allen makes a good case that the absence of that remaining eighty percent of elk hunters- as is true in any affinity wildlife group - deprives the organization of the two things that fuel their work: funds, and volunteers.

He remains convinced, however, that the single biggest concern for all wildlife groups can be summed up in a single word: habitat. Fighting habitat loss, unfortunately, takes time, money and volunteers. Today, many of the organizations are lacking in money and volunteers - and that may mean their time is running out.

"As a group," he adds,"we also tend not to support each other and act as a group until there's a crisis - then we overreact."

Will all the groups survive? "Not without some consolidation, I'm afraid," Allen said,"we have to find ways to get together for some of these groups to survive. I'm not optimistic everyone will."

Yesterday, two groups announced they will be working together in 2010. Dallas Safari Club and Ducks Unlimited both have annual conventions set for Dallas (DSC's First Light is January 7-10, DU's Convention and Expo is May 28-30). Each will take a major sponsor's role in the other's event.

"This partnership allows both organizations to connect with completely different segments of the hunting community," says DSC's executive Director Ben Carter, " Waterfowlers can learn about our big game initiatives, attend our show and have an opportunity to support us. And our deer and kudu and sheep fanatics can do the same for wetlands and prairie potholes."

DU CEO Randy L. Graves, says, "Hunters have demonstrated time and again that they're devoted to wildlife conservation in all its forms, so we're excited at the potential of this new partnership to grow support for both conventions."

I thought I would post this to get the word out. And hopefully more action.
We are all getting older and some of us have health or physical problems.
We all need to voice our opinions, its hard enough to go hunting, time, expense and access let alone the economy are taking there toll.

Determining what a Travel Management Plan (TMP) does depends on who you ask.

Ask a Forest Service official, and he'll say it's a way to balance the conflicting expectations of millions of visitors to national forests while protecting the land and wildlife under their administration.

Ask a soil scientist and he'll say it's a way to prevent soil erosion and sedimentation of waterways.

Ask a hunter, and he'll say it's one more roadblock to access-a bureaucratic reaction to a minority of irresponsible people that could penalize an overwhelmingly responsible majority.

Fundamentally, a TMP designates roads and trails as being opened, limited, or closed to motorized vehicles-including cars, pickups, ATVs, off-highway vehicles (OHVs), etc. As the plans are developed, a number of alternatives are often considered based on environmental assessments and public input-types of vehicles allowed, closing entire trails or just sections, closing for the entire year or allowing seasonal openings, inclusion or exclusion of "unauthorized trails," etc. The final decisions are documented on a Motor Vehicle Use Map (MVUM).

The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, which together manage 449 million acres of land, are in the process right now of creating TMPs for every unit of land they manage.

TMPs can work dramatically against hunter access. Right now, BLM is considering closing 139 miles of roads and trails in Arizona's Middle Gila Canyons. And in March, 186 miles of trails in Montana's Badger-two Medicine area were closed to motorized traffic.

Gary Marbut, President of the Montana Shooting Sports Association, said, "The effect of the road closures is that the Forest Service is creating larger and larger chunks of essentially unavailable land-de facto wilderness. The chief problem is game retrieval. Many of us are still fit enough to hike into the interior of these larger and larger blocks of public property, but we'd have no hope of packing an elk back out. This turns hunting on public property into a rich man's sport, practically available only to those who can afford to keep horses year-round, or who can afford to hire outfitters for game retrieval.

"Twenty years ago," Marbut continued, "there were enough points of road access to these lands that a person would have a decent chance of getting a 4x4 within three or four miles of a downed elk, making the retrieval possible, even if difficult. Now, with the many road closures, there are lots of places where it would be necessary to pack a downed elk 10, 20 or 30 miles through rugged, mountainous terrain-simply not possible for the usual hunter."

The issue of game retrieval is critical, one that Susan Recce, NRA-ILA's Director of Conservation, Wildlife and Natural Resources, has fought for in a number of TMPs. She noted, "The agencies are inconsistent from one plan to another. Some plans provide for retrieval, some don't."

In general, according to rules published in the Federal Register [(36CFR212.51 (b)], TMPs do allow for "the limited use of motor vehicles within a specified distance of certain designated routes...solely for the purpose of big game retrieval." Local officials have some discretion in determining that distance and those routes, but they are cautioned, "The Forest Service expects responsible officials to apply 36CFR 212.51 (b) sparingly to avoid undermining the purposes of the travel management rule ..."

Recce even feels that TMPs could be in conflict with an Executive Order issued by President Bush in August 2007-"Facilitation of Hunting Heritage and Wildlife Conservation." This order called for federal agencies to facilitate the expansion and enhancement of hunting opportunities and management of game species. Closing the trails does just the opposite.

Trail closings can affect local businesses, too. Facing proposed closures of trails in Tennessee's Nantahala National Forest, Helen and Chuck Davis, who owned a cabin rental outfit, put up "For Sale" signs. "We are facing a difficult decision," Ms. Davis told the Cherokee Scout. "We have everything up for sale. We are struggling. This is due to bad government decisions."

TMPs are not isolated inconveniences cropping up somewhere across the country from you. It's a nationwide issue-OHV users went from 5 million in 1972 to 52 million in 2006, according to one study. And the chief of the Forest Service has identified unmanaged recreation-which includes cross-country OHV usage-as one of the four most critical threats to national forests today. TMPs are being developed at the Ranger District or Field Office levels. If there is no TMP in place on the BLM or Forest Service land where you hunt, you can bet one is coming. Each will be open for public comment-and it's critical that hunters get involved in that process.

"Hunters are in the best position to know how a draft TMP would affect the roads and trails they use during hunting season, and they need to provide that information to the agencies," said Recce, who has provided NRA's comments on many TMPs. "The public participation process begins with the announcement of the agency's intent to prepare a plan," she continued, "so the public has input before a draft plan is written. Once written, the public can comment on the alternatives for management that are addressed in the plan. Hunters have to be active players throughout the planning process. They have to take charge of protecting their own interests."

How do you find out when a TMP in your area is opening up for comment? NRA-ILA sends out email alerts on major issues that affect gun owners, including TMPs. (Click here for one example.) To receive these emails, visit www.nraila.org, move your mouse to "Take Action" in the upper right, and click on "Email Signup."
(Also visit: http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/prog/Recreation/recreation_national/travel_management.html to learn more about BLM's plans and http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/ohv/index.shtml for the Forest Service TMP overview. )

TMPs have the potential to close down thousands of miles of roads and trails that sportsmen need to get into ever-shrinking public hunting lands, and there is substantial public sentiment in favor of closures. Yet in many cases hunters have been strangely quiet on the issue. In nearly a year of accepting public comment on the Humboldt-Toiyabe TMP, Forest Service officials received a grand total of 19 letters from citizens.

That's no way to make sure hunters' concerns are heard.

-- J.R. Robbins
Robbins is Managing Editor, NRAhuntersrights.org

Note: For tips on wise use of OHVs, visit www.treadlightly.org.

As big game hunting season nears its close, Nevada Department of Wildlife game wardens are seeking the public's help to solve a substantial increase in the number of poached big game animals across the state.

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