Columnist Susan Snyder: Valley is no place to hunt doves

Friday, Sept. 7, 2001 | 4:42 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column also appears Tuesdays and Fridays in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

Sharon Linsenbardt was crouched near the ground, fixing a sprinkler head, when the gunshot cracked just above her head.

She was about a foot away from the block wall that encloses her 5-acre property at the corner of Grand Teton Drive and Tenaya Way. Someone on the other side shot at the dove sitting atop the wall.

"He just blew it off the fence right over my head," the 53-year-old said, adding she's glad she didn't stand up at that moment. "I'd have been dead because of some idiot hunting doves."

It happened a couple of weeks ago, even though the state's 30-day dove-hunting season didn't open until Sept. 1. Linsenbardt says it gets worse after that.

Hunters shoot doves out of her trees, off her fence, in front of her house and even off the telephone and electrical wires strung overhead, she says.

"They've shot these lines up so bad, my power will go off at least once or twice whenever the wind blows hard," she said.

"These guys think they can go around in the fields and shoot the birds out of people's trees. They come out here crawling through the bushes and hanging out of the back of their trucks. Last Sunday they were out here after dark with flood lights."

Linsenbardt grew up in the Las Vegas Valley. The house she now owns is only the second one she's ever lived in. She realizes her property, across the road from Gilcrease Orchard, used to be out in the boonies.

"But it's not 'out' anymore," she said.

The beltway construction half a mile away and row upon row of stucco houses with red-tile roofs visible in three directions should pretty much dispel the boonies image.

But for those still struggling with the concept, a huge map mounted in the lobby of the Nevada Division of Wildlife office on Vegas Drive shows it is illegal to discharge a firearm (that's "shoot a gun" for those quibbling over the technical term) anywhere near Grand Teton Drive and Tenaya Way.

In fact, the no-shooting area pretty much encompasses the entire inhabited region of the valley, from Boulder City to the Desert National Wildlife Range and from the valley's extreme eastern edge to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.

It's a ragged, zigzaggy boundary. Those who plan to hunt really should look at it for themselves. Jeff Schneider, of the state wildlife agency, says it might be easiest to simply understand that people who want to hunt doves this month need to leave the valley.

"The valley is now pretty much closed," Schneider said. "It's not a hunting issue. It's a discharge of firearm issue. You're not allowed to discharge a firearm."

And people are only allowed to hunt doves from half an hour before sunrise until sunset. There should be none of this lurking around in the shrubbery with flood lights.

It is amazing that grown-ups need to be told or reminded that shooting into a tree sitting in someone's yard or shooting over a fence toward someone's home is a bad idea. Go to Smith's and buy a chicken if you don't want to drive to a place where firing a gun at doves is legal.

"People around here walk out of their houses and shoot. Hunting is allowed, but not off your front porch," Linsenbardt said. "Get in your truck and go someplace else."