Columnist Paula DelGiudice: Elk plan to become public

Paula DelGiudice

Wednesday, Dec. 9, 1998 | 3:18 a.m.

Paula DelGiudice's outdoors notebook appears Wednesday. Reach her at PDelGiudice@compuserve.com.

The public will have its first chance to view the Lincoln County Elk Management Plan at a Friday meeting from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Lincoln County Courthouse in Pioche. The elk plan, two years in the planning, is a community-based effort to determine the future of elk in Lincoln County.

The plan was developed by a technical review team comprised of representatives of the Bureau of Land Management (the agency responsible for managing the elk habitat in Lincoln County), the Nevada Division of Wildlife, local ranchers representing the livestock industry, county officials, sportsmen and members of the Lincoln County Advisory Board to Manage Wildlife.

"The plan outlines where we're at with elk currently throughout its existing range in Lincoln County and then identifies goals for population numbers, habitat enhancement or improvement projects (such as improving the forage or perhaps providing water in critical areas), short-term and long-term goals and monitoring the use of elk in relation to other big game wildlife population numbers and livestock use," said Mike Cox, NDOW 's supervising game biologist.

"The plan is actually pretty balanced because it was a community-based consensus project, everyone got to have their say. There is the recommendation for a short-term population level of 300 elk. In 1999, there will be a re-evaluation of that population level. At that time, several allotments will reevaluated by the BLM. They will determine, based on their monitoring data, whether to allow the level to increase."

Currently, the elk in Lincoln County inhabit the Wilson Creek Range, White Rock Mountain, and Lake, Camp, Hamlin and Spring Valleys. The population, estimated to be 330 animals last year, resulted from the natural dispersal of animals from a release made by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources in the Indian Peaks Mountain Range in Utah.

The first sightings of what was to become a new population in Nevada were recorded in 1979.

The public will have the opportunity to comment on the plan at the Friday evening in Pioche. The deadline for review of the draft and providing comments is Dec. 31.

For more information, call the NDOW at 486-5127.

Trout it out

Trout Unlimited reports that the U.S. Forest Service has begun to stabilize portions of the Jarbidge River in Elko County that were illegally bulldozed in July. According to the national office of TU, it was local TU activists who were to be commended for successfully stopping Elko County from doing additional damage to the river.

The original dispute occurred in July, when the Elko County Commission directed county road crews to use heavy equipment to reconstruct the road in the Humboldt National Forest in defiance of Forest Service regulations, Nevada state law, and the Clean Water Act. The bulldozing threatened the remaining population of bull trout in Nevada.

Reptile rap

The meeting to discuss biological issues related to the commercial collection of reptiles in Nevada will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Cashman Field Complex, Room 101-102, 850 Las Vegas Blvd. North, at the north end of the complex.

For more information contact NDOW at 486-5127.