Wednesday, May 07, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Clash focuses on butterfly species

FALLON -- Environmentalists want to close 1,000 acres on Sand Mountain to vehicles to protect a blue butterfly species whose status is listed as "sensitive" by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

That would eliminate 25 percent the area east of town enjoyed by off-road vehicle enthusiasts, who question just how rare the butterfly is.

Immediate closure of the tract 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 problem, they say, is loss of vegetative cover; vehicles harm Kearney buckwheat, a food source for the Sand Mountain blue butterfly. BLM ecologist Dean Kinerson said that as far as is known, the insect lives nowhere else and depends on buckwheat.

Off-highway vehicle enthusiasts such as Jon Crowley, president of the nonprofit group Friends of Sand Mountain, acknowledge that 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.

The BLM council created a subgroup to study the issue. 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.

Crowley's group regularly cleans up Sand Mountain. It also distributes fliers and organizes programs teaching off-roaders how to tread lightly.

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