Devils Gate Pilot Project Presentation - Elko County

Without prior public knowledge or notification the USFS
and the BLM have instituted and implemented Sage
Grouse Interim Management strategies detrimental to the
multiple uses directives for federally managed public lands.
The BLM has implemented the “National Greater Sage
Grouse Land Use Planning Strategy Instruction
Memorandum No. 2012-044”. This action was executed by
the BLM on December 27, 2011 during the Christmas
holiday while Congress was in recess. Subsequently the
BLM revised the Instructional Memorandum with NV-
2012-058 used to develop further restrictions of federally
managed public lands in Nevada. In early 2012 the USFS
adopted and implemented a near mirror to the
management memorandum.

1. Spring of 2012, the Bureau of Land Management deferred a decision on the
China Mountain Wind Project for more than three years until work is finished on a
plan for Sage Grouse conservation across the west. The China Mountain project
would have provided $1.8 million in tax revenue annually as well as other economic
benefits to Elko County.
2. Spring of 2012, the BLM, again without public knowledge or notification, the
BLM arbitrarily withdrew 160,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Elko County that
were being considered as critical Nevada exploration by oil and gas development
companies that are currently introducing oil and gas exploration in Elko County.
These companies would have expended hundreds of millions of dollars in Elko
County exploring for oil and gas.
3. February of 2013, the BLM, again without public knowledge or notification,
withdrew approximately 1,200,000 acres from public economic use in Elko County.
We cannot seem to identify exactly what has been withdrawn and where. It has
been and is a moving target.
4. It has been reported that in Owyhee County, Idaho, the county adjoining Elko
County on the north, that the BLM has reduced grazing another 47% in 2013.

The Elko County Greater Sage Grouse
Management and Conservation Strategy Plan
Conclusion:
The Elko County Board of Commissioners recognizes and
embraces the importance of the Sage Grouse populations to the
history and culture of Elko County. We also recognize the
importance of conservation, preservation and rehabilitation of
sagebrush habitat not only to the Sage Grouse but to other
sagebrush dependent wildlife. The Elko County Greater Sage
Grouse Management and Conservation Strategy Plan has
provided measures and strategies to help ensure that Sage
Grouse and wildlife habitat is protected and rehabilitated
through education and non-regulatory methods. The Elko
County Commission has also provided information establishing
that the Sage Grouse should not be listed as an Endangered or
Threatened Species.

6.4.1.2 – Management Goal 2: Develop a Pilot Project to monitor the
affects of historical grazing, predator control and range management
methods and their impacts on the Sage Grouse Populations and
Habitat.
Issue: Lack of current specific data concerning the effects on Sage Grouse
Populations and Habitat when utilizing historical Livestock Grazing,
Predator Control and Range Management policies and measures.
Actions:
1) Propose the identification of a specific Pilot Project area of
approximately 72 square mile to 216 square miles in size to implement
historical livestock grazing, predator control and range management
polices to develop scientific data related to the Sage Grouse
populations and habitat.
2) Implement and develop the Pilot Project using historical livestock
grazing, predator control and range management polices to develop
scientific data related to the Sage Grouse populations and habitat.
a) Funding through the State of Nevada Department of Wildlife & BLM
from Ruby Pipeline Sage Grouse Conservation funds.

Approximately 15,000 Acres of Privately Owned
Property in North Central Elko County Dedicated to
the Rehabilitation and Research of Agricultural
affects on the Greater Sage Grouse

Mission Statement:
To establish a controlled sage steppe habitat
area with known Greater Sage Grouse
populations and implement historic
agricultural, grazing and predator control
methods and policies to determine their
affects to the Greater Sage Grouse populations
and habitat.

1. Identify and develop an area utilizing historical agricultural uses.
2. Implement historical predator control program within project
area.
3. Review the baseline Sage Grouse population and habitat research
completed by Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) and expand
the research.
4. Identify Lek areas/prime habitat and monitor Sage Grouse
populations and other sage steppe habitat.
5. Identify predator populations in project area.
6. Monitor predator populations in project area.
7. Identify wildland fire threat in project area.

1. Add to the baseline data developed by NDOW on Greater
Sage Grouse populations and habitat.
2. Determine affects of historical agriculture, grazing and
predators control to the Greater Sage Grouse populations
and habitat.
3. Increase Greater Sage Grouse populations in project area.
4. Increase sage steppe habitat in project area.
5. Control predation of Sage Grouse eggs and young.
6. Reduce wildfire possibility by fuel reduction.

Officials in Elko County have approved a pilot project designed to keep sage grouse
off the endangered species list by killing ravens with poisoned eggs and reducing
wildfire fuel through livestock grazing. Elko County commissioners say the
program, set to begin on the 15,000-acre Devils Gate Ranch, is needed because
wildfires and ravens pose the biggest threat to the chicken-size bird.
Ted Koch, state supervisor of the Fish and Wildlife Service in Reno, agrees
wildfires and ravens are factors in the bird’s decline. He says Nevada alone has seen
a 600 percent increase in the scavengers in the past three decades. Sage grouse
populations are estimated to have fallen 90 percent in the past century, even as
cattle grazing has been systematically reduced by government regulators under
pressure from absentee environmentalists.
It’s the first such private-local government agreement designed to stave off a
federal listing, commissioners said, and was prompted by concern that listing the
large ground-dwelling bird could result in federal restrictions on grazing, mining,
oil and gas drilling and other activities on public land — the real goal of many
radical environmentalists.

Grazing livestock reduces fuels on the range, commissioners say; some of the worst
fire seasons on record occurred after the government sharply reduced grazing on
public lands in recent decades. The Idaho-based Western Watersheds Project,
which has actually called for the removal of all livestock, closing roads and a ban on
new oil and gas drilling, criticized the plan. “Their fixation on killing and poisoning
native wildlife and turning lands back into a dustbowl is really twisted,” said Katie
Fite, the group’s biodiversity director.
But Ms. Fite is wrong. In fact, wildlife has never prospered as well in the arid West
as when ranchers are present to develop water resources and thin out predators.
Both rancher Ken Bowler and the County Commission are to be congratulated for
approaching the issue with common sense based on the knowledge and
observation of the real stewards of the range — those who have spent their lives
there.
The Devils Gate Ranch pilot program is well worth a try.

It is my opinion that we must know everything we can about Greater Sage Grouse,
especially in the pilot project area. In the 1980's when I was developing the
National Wilderness Conferences and traveling and speaking in spotted owl areas
it was clear that the political leaders were depending on the biologists to tell them
everything about the spotted owl.
As a result the political leaders were at the mercy of the biologists and other
professionals and were tentative in their actions, always waiting on a study. If we
wait on studies we will be waiting decades like the political leaders did with the
spotted owl.
A. Grant Gerber
Elko County Commissioner

Thank you for this opportunity to give
this brief presentation and present
you with a copy of the Elko County
Greater Sage Grouse Management and
Conservation Strategy Plan
Questions ?