Bombing range could take bite out of prime Nevada bighorn habitat

Although he lived in Northern Nevada his entire life, Tony Erquiaga was deep into middle age the first time he saw a bighorn sheep in the wild.

It happened in the mid-1980s on the western edge of Dixie Valley, about 60 miles east of Fallon.

Erquiaga, who died in 2004, was with his son Carl, who had taken him to the Stillwater Range where the Nevada Department of Wildlife had reintroduced the species a few years prior.

“He had never seen a bighorn sheep in his life, even though he lived here the whole time,” Carl Erquiaga said of his father, a hunter, farmer and outdoorsman. “It was a big moment for him.”

Bighorn sheep have thrived in the Stillwater and neighboring ranges since being reintroduced more than three decades ago.

But now Erquiaga, who works for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, wonders if future generations of Northern Nevadans will have as many chances to appreciate the sheep in the wild.

That’s because operators of the Fallon Naval Air Station are seeking to increase the amount of land fenced off for training by hundreds of thousands of acres.

Under the Navy’s preferred alternative, the military would withdraw 620,000 acres, an area nearly twice the size of Los Angeles, from public use.

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Much of the area would be within or adjacent to habitat for desert bighorn sheep, which could make for reduced or more difficult access for people who enjoy hunting or photographing the animals in the wild.

“When you start losing access to large tracts of land, it hits home,” Erquiaga said during a recent sheep-watching trip. “We all love the fact that the Navy is here, but you're taking our backyard, the places that we grew up.” 

Bighorn in Nevada

Prior to an influx of settlers in the 1800s, bighorn sheep were plentiful throughout mountain ranges in Western states, including Nevada.

Wild sheep populations began to suffer, however, as people imported domestic sheep, which brought diseases for which wild sheep had no immunity.

In Nevada, sheep populations and range dwindled, and by the 20th century, wild sheep were reduced to a few low-elevation locales in central and southern Nevada.

During the middle of the 20th century, the Nevada Department of Fish and Game began small steps to reintroduce sheep from Southern Nevada to the rest of the state.

Early efforts placed sheep on Mt. Grant near Hawthorne, the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge and the Santa Rosa Mountains in Humboldt County.

There are now an estimated 12,000 bighorn sheep in Nevada, with desert bighorn the most prominent, ranging across the state south of Interstate 80. The northwest corner of the state is home to California bighorn sheep while Rocky Mountain bighorns live in northeastern Nevada.

Reintroduction has also been a financial success for habitat and sheep health programs.

Much of the money comes from hunters. At auction, a single “heritage” tag, which allows the holder to hunt a wild sheep across dozens of hunt units statewide, can fetch more than $150,000, with the proceeds going toward wildlife conservation.

Despite the success of reintroduction programs, there are still few places where the public can reliably view bighorn sheep.

In Boulder City, sheep regularly wander into Hemenway Park and on Mt. Grant, which is within the Hawthorne Army Depot and accessible with permission, sheep frequent rocky slopes near the road to the peak.

With plans to expand the Fallon Naval Air Station, bighorn sheep enthusiasts worry the public will lose access to reliable sheep viewing and hunting areas in Churchill County.

“We don’t have a Hemenway Park in Northern Nevada,” said Peregrine Wolff, a board member of the Wild Sheep Foundation and a Nevada Department of Wildlife veterinarian. “So being able to see them there is probably one of your closer areas.”

Proposed expansion

The Fallon Range Training Complex Modernization project would triple the size of restricted areas around the Fallon Naval Air Station in Churchill County and spill into neighboring Lyon, Nye, Mineral and Pershing counties.

The proposal would affect more than 600,000 acres of public land, in addition to the approximately 200,000 acres already under Navy control.

Navy officials say expansion is important because the area dedicated to training is no longer enough for the pilots or the Navy SEALs who train in Nevada.

For example, older Navy aircraft tended to fly missions at an altitude of about 10,000 feet and approached targets from about four to five miles out. Modern aircraft, according to the Navy, fly at about 30,000 feet and approach targets from as far out as 12 miles.

The expansion, Navy officials say, would help pilots and other personnel conduct missions that better simulate realistic conditions.

Naval officials acknowledge at least parts of the proposal are bound to be unpopular with people who use affected areas for everything from mining to hunting to sightseeing.

But they’re adamant the expansion is critical for the future of the military.

That’s because the Fallon base, also known as the desert carrier, is where every air wing that’s assigned to an aircraft carrier trains.

At any given time there’s a workforce of about 3,000 people at the station, according to Zip Upham, public affairs officer. When an air wing is training, that number increases by about 1,800, Upham said.

The public comment period for the project recently closed and now officials are charged with evaluating and responding to public input.

The draft proposal would allow hunting, off-highway driving, camping and other forms of public access in an area known as the Dixie Valley Training Area, which includes a portion of the eastern slopes of the Stillwater Range.

However, expanded portions of four bombing areas would drastically limit access, including to hunters.

Alex Stone, program manager for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, said officials would do their best to respond to the public’s concerns. But he acknowledged that in many areas of the proposed expansion public access won’t be feasible.

“There are some hard requirements like some of the safety requirements for not allowing people on the active bombing range,” Stone said. “That is very unlikely we would change our position on something so fundamental to the requirements of the project. But we are trying to be flexible.”

Stone, a civilian employee of the Navy, also noted that no matter what version of expansion occurs, wildlife would not be put in the path of actual bombing.

Stone said the Navy can ensure there is no wildlife in target areas prior to training. That’s because areas with targets are much smaller than the totality of what's fenced off for a safety buffer.

“The impact to people being able to access the area for things like hunting is more of an impact,” Stone said.