Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference

In January 2000, The Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners directed the Nevada Division of Wildlife (NDOW) to contract with the United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services Program (WS) to conduct wildlife damage management (WDM) activities for the protection of certain species of Nevada’s wildlife. Responding to the Commission’s directive, the NDOW requested WS to initiate protection of a variety of avian and mammalian wildlife resources that they deemed in need of special protection from “excessive predation”. Nevada has a greater percentage of publicly owned/managed lands than any other state in the nation – about 86% – so most of the wildlife resources requiring special protection from predators are located on federal lands, usually Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or United States Forest Service (USFS) lands. Because the natural resources to be protected were on public lands, WS was required to develop Annual Work Plans prior to conducting WDM activities that fulfilled WS’ mission and conformed to BLM’s and USFS’ land use plans. Prior to initiating any WDM actions, WS personnel conducted predator avian/mammalian surveys to monitor targeted predator populations. Additionally, WS conducted predator avian/mammalian surveys throughout the ongoing WDM activities, as well as shortly thereafter, to monitor targeted predator population levels. WS personnel directed their actions toward the surgical removal of those species deemed problematic by NDOW (mountain lions, coyotes, common ravens, magpies, and badgers), depending on the resource to be protected, the specific locations where protection was deemed necessary, and during the specific period of the year when damage occurred. Results from WS’ WDM activities on these projects were reported by NDOW, the management agency responsible for managing Nevada’s wildlife. As an added benefit to the resource protection work, WS took blood samples from all avian and mammalian predators removed during WDM activities in order to monitor wildlife diseases via testing conducted by the Centers for Disease Control or the Nevada Department of Agriculture’s Animal Testing Lab.