Columnist Paula DelGiudice: Tag process prompts gripes

Paula DelGiudice

Wednesday, June 14, 2000 | 9:52 a.m.

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

Big game tags are out and hunters are busy making plans for the fall, either for their Nevada hunt or for a hunt out-of-state (if they weren't among those lucky enough to draw a Nevada tag).

Some are unhappy about the reporting process for tags. Tags were mailed on June 5 while unsuccessful notices and refund checks were sent the following day. Some feel they should be sent at the same time. Anyone who has an opinion about the issue can contact the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners at Nevada Division of Wildlife, P.O. Box 30040, Reno, NV 89520-3040.

Remember that the Hunt Application Office, a separate vendor, now conducts the application and drawing process for the Nevada Division of Wildlife, but the Board of Wildlife Commissioners oversees the process. So if you think it isn't working the way it could be, I'm sure they'd want to know about it.

A total of 26,153 big game hunting tags were issued to resident and non-resident hunters during the drawing. There are 6,379 remaining with the majority set aside for the resident youth deer hunts, the resident muzzleloader deer hunts and the resident antlerless (doe) deer hunts.

Applications for the second tag drawing and the Nevada Hunt Book, which lists regulations and other hunting information for all of the state's hunt seasons, will be available at NDOW's Las Vegas offices this week. Applications for the second drawing must be received by mail at the Hunt Application Office in Fallon by 5 p.m. on July 3.

Results from the first drawing are posted on NDOW's website. It can be accessed at www.state.nv.us/cnr/nvwildlife/.

Plans originally called for the fish to be stocked on Tuesday, June 6, in ponds at Floyd Lamb State Park and Lorenzi Park. The fish are raised by a private grower in Arizona who brings them to Las Vegas. The fish were finally stocked last Thursday. Another plant is scheduled for Tuesday.

This year the meeting was in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. The organization is headquartered in a town just outside of Ottawa. Ottawa is a beautiful city -- green trees, green grass, lots of water. It is the perfect backdrop for the seat of Parliament -- the country's government.

A tour of Parliament Hill and a quick lesson on Canadian government helped me to understand just a fraction of how it operates. What I learned, however, made me quite glad to be an American.

I was even more proud as a bunch of sports fans watched the Stanley Cup final hockey game. I asked about hockey being the Canadian national pastime. They all replied about how proud they were to have such great hockey teams. I wondered aloud, then, why was it that two American teams (New Jersey and Dallas) were vying for the Cup? All in all, it was good fun and honest jesting.

When it comes to natural resource issues, we have some in common. They worry about water diversions, for instance, a topic of great interest in Southern Nevada. There are proposals surfacing to divert water from the U.S. and eventually into Canada.

Game ranching is big in Canada. The provincial organizations that make up the Canadian Wildlife Federation (much in the same way that the state affiliates such as the Nevada Wildlife Federation make up the National Wildlife Federation) adamantly oppose game ranching. The Alberta affiliate reports, "It requires a giant leap of the imagination to refer to these procedures as hunting when the animals are enclosed by escape-proof fences."

In Saskatchewan, several cases of chronic wasting disease have been discovered in game-ranched animals. In that case, the animals are destroyed and the ranch is quarantined. Game ranching brings with it many problems that the organizations in Canada continue to work to prevent.

Some of the organizations are fighting efforts to register firearms. Most are concerned about the same issues faced here in the U.S.: allocation of hunting tags, decline in habitats, loss of fish stocks (salmon and cod), air and water pollution.

On Friday, commissioners from the two states will hold a one-day meeting to hear reports on management of interstate herds, sage grouse management, management activities for Lahontan cutthroat trout and management activities at Lake Tahoe.

On Saturday, the Nevada commission will meet at 9:30 a.m. at the Churchill County Wildlife Commission Chambers, 155 North Taylor in Fallon. Highlighting the agenda will be a presentation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on a conservation plan for Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge.