Columnist Paula DelGiudice: Hunting season dates established

Paula DelGiudice

Thursday, March 1, 2001 | 9:58 a.m.

Paula DelGiudice's outdoors notebook appears weekly. Reach her at desertdenizens@aol.com.

April (and the deadline for applying for big game tags in Nevada) is just around the corner, so hunters are beginning to think about next fall and planning their hunting seasons. So, too, are Nevada Division of Wildlife officials.

The process began with the recommendation of the season dates by NDOW to the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners. The Commission met in Reno recently to establish those dates. With few exceptions, the opening and closing dates that were approved are the same as in past years.

Most rifle deer hunting seasons will be held Oct. 6 through Nov. 4. The separate muzzleloader deer season will be Sept. 8-23 and the archery season in most hunt units will be Aug. 11-Sept. 7.

The majority of the antelope rifle hunts will run Aug. 25-Sept.3. At the request of the county wildlife advisory boards, a number of rifle antelope hunts in Elko, Eureka, and White Pine counties will extend Sept. 1-9. Archery antelope hunts will run Aug. 4-19 in most hunt units.

Elk rifle hunts will be Nov. 17-Dec. 2 in six of the 11 hunt units open this year with various opening and closing dates set for the remaining five hunts. One new area, unit 075 of north-central Elko County, will be open this year.

Most of the muzzleloader elk hunts will run Nov. 3-16 and most archery hunts will extend Aug. 18-Sept. 14 or 16.

Desert bighorn sheep hunts are set for Nov. 10-Dec. 9, the same as in recent years. California bighorn sheep seasons run from Sept. 1-30. Hunt units 014 and 022 in Washoe County were closed on the recommendation of NDOW due to low sheep population levels.

A new California sheep hunting season was opened in unit 041 of Pershing County. Gregg Tanner, NDOW chief of game, said the unit is an area in which NDOW has not released sheep, but that a population has been established by sheep migrations in recent years.

Acting on recommendations by county advisory boards, the mountain lion hunting season will be open throughout the year in all units open to hunting, beginning Aug. 1. NDOW has recommended an Aug. 1, 2001, through April 30, 2002 season in most areas, which would have been similar to previous seasons.

The next step in the process occurs when NDOW biologists complete their ground and aerial surveys of game populations to determine how animals "carried over" the winter. Those surveys combined with the data obtained from post-season surveys will help biologists make recommendations for the quotas that will be acted upon by the Board of Wildlife Commission at its meeting in May.

In the meantime, now that hunting seasons have been established, the application process can commence. Those who applied for tags last year will receive application information in the mail within the next few weeks.

A copy of the park's complete annual performance plan, prepared in accordance with the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), is available by writing to Superintendent, Great Basin National Park, 100 Great Basin National Park, Baker, NV 89311.

The goals for the annual performance plan are derived from the 2000 NPS Strategic Plan available on the NPS home page at www.nps.gov.