OK guys, a lot of you have asked what you can do to help fight this closure at Sand Mountain. Here is one easy way to help. If you are heading up to the mountain anytime in the next month, and especially over Memorial Weekend, we need help distributing flyers to other users out there. I have created a two-page flyer that is meant to be printed on one piece of paper (front/back). I print it in color using draft mode.

The flyer has a map of the closure plus other info about the RAC meeting and why its' important to tread lightly. We need to get as many people informed as possible.

Another thing you can do is print them out and give them to shops/dealers in your area so they can help get them to users.

Here are two different links to the file. It is in acrobat (pdf) format and is about 200K:

Flyer download - location #1

Flyer download - location #2

Thanks,

Jon

Friends of Sand Mountain

 

I will print them out and pass some out there for memorial. Thanks again for all your hard work Jon.

 

May 5, 2003
Butterfly may cut off-road vehicle engines

By Karl Horeis, Tribune News Service

FALLON -- Environmentalists want to draw a line on Sand Mountain by closing 1,000 acres to vehicles in order to protect a rare blue butterfly.

Immediate closure of 1,000 acres of Sand Mountain to off-highway vehicles was recommended by an ecologist with the Bureau of Land Management, the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone tribe and the Nature Conservancy during an April 30 meeting of the BLM's Resource Advisory Council in Fallon.

The closure would cut 25 percent the area now open to off-road vehicles, though the area would still be open to visitors on foot.

According to Nature Conservancy representatives, vehicles pose a "critical threat to the viability of Sand Mountain and its unique suite of plants and invertebrates."

The problem, they say, is loss of vegetative cover from RV use. The vehicles harm Kearney buckwheat, a food source for the Sand Mountain blue butterfly.

"As far as we know the (Sand Mountain blue butterfly) lives nowhere else and it depends on the Kearney buckwheat," said BLM plant ecologist Dean Kinerson. "We've seen trail increases into Sand Mountain blue butterfly habitat since 1978 -- particularly in the '90s."

Off-highway vehicle enthusiasts like Jon Crowley, president of the nonprofit group Friends of Sand Mountain, acknowledge the species is sensitive, but are not ready to close the dunes.

"As far as we know, it doesn't live anywhere else, but we'd like to see them verify that," he said.

He said there are about 30 sand dune areas in Nevada, and claimed Kearney buckwheat lives in other areas. He would like to see those areas checked for the butterfly before parts of Sand Mountain are closed.

BLM has the authority to make emergency closures if it decides that resource damage is a problem. The decision would ultimately be made by John Singlaub, field manager at the Carson City field office, which covers the Sand Mountain Recreation Area.

The Resource Advisory Council created a subgroup to advise the bureau. It will include off-road vehicle users, environmentalists, biologists and representatives from the tribe. Crowley has applied to be a part of the group.

During the meeting in Fallon, the Friends of Sand Mountain urged the BLM to exhaust other means of stopping vegetation loss before limiting the use of off-highway vehicles at Sand Mountain. The group asks its members, described by the BLM's Terry Knight as "an ad-hoc group of mostly OHV enthusiasts," to tread lightly on the dunes. The first line of BLM's mission is "to keep Sand Mountain clean, safe and open for future generations."

Crowley's group regularly cleans up Sand Mountain. They also distribute fliers and organize programs teaching off-roaders how to tread lightly.

"We'd like to see the BLM be a partner in that as well," Crowley said.

He proposed that BLM take on buckwheat restoration projects like the one to help a sensitive blue butterfly near Los Angeles International Airport.

"That way we can help mitigate any habitat loss," he said.

But butterflies and buckwheat are not the only concerns of ecologists at Sand Mountain.

Kinerson listed the Sand Mountain aphodius scarab beetle, the click beetle and two bee species, perdita hiagi and the perdita sp. nov. 3 as invertebrates living only on the Sand Mountain dunes. Some of these are so newly discovered scientists have yet to name them.

Other invertebrates, including the Hardy's aegialian scarab beetle, the Sand Mountain pygmy scarab beetle, the Sand Mountain serican scarab beetle and the anthophora sp. nov. 1 bee live only on the dunes and in the area just south of there.

"You wouldn't find these invertebrates anywhere else in the world," Kinerson said. "If we lose them, they're gone forever."

Off-road enthusiasts were also represented at the meeting by the Off-Road Business Association, the California Off-Road Vehicle Association, the California Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs and the American Sand Association.

To serve on the BLM's Resource Advisory Council subgroup, call BLM public affairs officer Mark Struble at (775) 885-6107.

http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/app...5050106&Ref=AR

 

I think its hilarious and not even close to noble that these people spend all of their time trying to save insects.

Humans have only been on this planet for less than a second of its (Earths) time and can you imagine how many types of insects have come and gone without human interference. And for some reason this guy and others want to play Mother Nature and save a butterfly and a beetle.

How does he know that Mother Nature intends to let this species die out because of natural selection. Or that saving this butterfly will have unkown reprocussions on another insect or plant.

There are far far worse things destroying the planet that a few people riding on uninhabitable sand dunes.

I now step off of my soapbox.

Be sure to laugh at this idiot for me when you see him/her.

 

"Endangered Species: Nearly all species, 95%, that ever existed on earth are extinct. Darwin was right! The U.S. Department of the Interior recently announced that 29 species have been removed from the official list because they have been "saved" from extinction, but, of these, five were already extinct and four others were species that do not clinically exist. Another eight species were removed for what was called "clinical errors." Extinction is a natural process." Alan Caruba - www.anxietycenter.com

 

We'll be out Memorial Weekend.

This is crazy.

Maybe I'll have to take up flying - at least the environmentalists can't take away air space (yet!)

 

you might be wrong on that dune me plans do bad things to bird when they hit plus think of all the insects on the windshield. maybe you guys could tell the enviromentalist that you didn't put that winshield on the ds that they offer to do your part to save the bugs[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Jon.
I will be heading up for Memorial. I will print some flyers for distribution. Were are you planning on camping?

 

I'm not actually there on Memorial weekend. We've got other plans that don't include sand. [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-sad.gif[/img]

Next trip for us is Father's Day. It's my day so I get to decide!

Thanks for helping with the flyers.

Jon

 

Who all is heading up there for memorial? I know duneme and mr. 830 are. Who else. Wanna have a group camp together again? We will be getting there thursday morning prolly so can reserve space, i remember we got there thursday morning last memorial and got one of that last big areas available. What do you think? It can be DS days warmup [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img] Sean