The Nevada Division of State Parks has $1.2 million available for trails projects.
State and local government agencies, as well as tribes, special districts, and private groups may apply for the grants.
The application and details about it are available online.
By Jim Krajewski, Reno Gazette-Journal
If a concussion can happen to one of the most talented, highly recruited football players to come out of Northern Nevada, it can happen to anyone.
Brandon Kaho, who has offers to play college football at more than 20 major college programs, had to sit out a game last season after suffering a concussion.
Player safety in high school athletics has become a high priority in recent years, especially as concussions have become a topic of national discussion spurred by some players in the NFL suffering debilitating effects.
Concussions sustained in high school football practices dropped sharply from 2015 to 2016 — coaches have curtailed the amount of hitting players take during practice, for example. But there was a slight increase in concussions reported during games over that same time frame.
By Tim Stephens, UC Santa Cruz
The American pika, a small mammal adapted to high altitudes and cold temperatures, has died out from a 64-square-mile span of habitat in California’s northern Sierra Nevada mountains, and the cause appears to be climate change, according to a study published Aug. 30 in PLOS One.
Researchers surveyed pika habitat throughout the North Lake Tahoe area and found that pikas had disappeared from an area that stretches from near Tahoe City to Truckee, more than 10 miles away, and includes Mount Pluto. This local extinction is the largest area of pika extinction yet reported for the modern era.
“The loss of pikas from this large area of otherwise suitable habitat echoes prehistoric range collapses that happened when temperatures increased after the last ice age,” said lead author Joseph Stewart, a doctoral candidate at UC Santa Cruz. “This time, however, we’re seeing the effects of climate change unfold on a scale of decades as opposed to millennia.”
By Scott Smith, AP
Endangered California frogs are getting an immunity boost from scientists who are scooping them up from remote Sierra Nevada ponds and sending them to big city zoos for inoculation, giving them a fighting chance to beat extinction, officials said.
The experiment aims to rescue the 3-inch mountain yellow-legged frog — named for distinctive coloring under its hind legs. Scientists use nets to capture diseased tadpoles and then fly them by helicopter from their natural range deep within the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.
They are next driven over 200 miles across the state to the San Francisco and Oakland zoos, where they are inoculated against a ravaging disease partly blamed for wiping them out from much of their historical range in the Sierra, scientists said.
Nevada park rangers will be providing free, guided tours to learn about Tahoe’s Comstock history, when the land that now makes up the park was used to harvest wood and water to feed the mines and population of Virginia City.
The tour will follow the remnants of the Virginia Gold Hill Water Company flumes and inverted siphon. This system was built in 1873 and there are many historic sites that remain to this day.
Bring lunch, water, sturdy boots, sunscreen and a hat. Dress for the weather.
The tours will depart at 9:30am on Sept. 9 and Sept. 10, and will return no later than 4pm.
Sign-ups are required and participation is limited to the first 12 people. Reserve a spot by calling 775.831.0494 or emailing TahoeSP@gmail.com. Parking is on the street in Lakeview Estates, 4400 Hobart Road, Carson City.
The 2017 pine nut harvest season is about to kick off on lands managed by the Nevada Bureau of Land Management and Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.
Both agencies are working together to ensure the public is safely harvesting pine nuts and aware of the regulations. The length of the pine nut harvest season varies depending on crop quality and weather conditions. It is generally September to late October.
The BLM and U.S. Forest Service have two types of pine nut harvesting: personal use and commercial use. Personal use is the harvesting of relatively small amounts of pine nuts not intended for sale. Commercial use is when harvesters intend to sell their nuts or if they are harvesting large quantities for personal use.
Individuals and families may gather up to 25 pounds of nuts per season/per household without a personal use permit and at no charge. Anyone who would like to gather more than 25 pounds must contact the local BLM or Forest Service office.
Personal use harvesting is allowed anywhere that pinyon pine trees may be found on BLM managed lands. The Battle Mountain and Ely Districts have issued a total of 11 commercial permits for the collection of just more than 205,750 pounds of pine nuts.
On the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, personal use harvesting is also allowed anywhere that pinyon pine trees may be found on the Austin-Tonopah, Bridgeport, Carson, Ely, and Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge Ranger Districts, as well as the Spring Mountains National Recreation Area. Only one commercial contract has been awarded by the Ely Ranger District.
Thanks to an $8,000 grant from Dog Day in the Park, the Tahoe Unleashed Dog Park in the North Tahoe Regional Park has added dog agility equipment to the small dog, large dog and outback areas of the park.
Dog Day in the Park was instrumental in developing and constructing the Tahoe Unleashed Dog Park in the North Tahoe Regional Park.
A variety of equipment was purchased including an “up and over” bridge walk, crawl tube, adjustable jumps, fire hydrants, and a ring jump.
By Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times
The Trump administration is considering overhauling a program that allows foreign college students to work temporarily in the United States, sparking panic among operators of ski resorts and concessions at state and national parks who rely heavily on such seasonal help.
In a conference call Wednesday, ski resort operators and other tourism industry officials urged representatives of Trump’s domestic policy staff to keep intact the so-called J-1 visa program.
Tourism executives who participated in the call said Trump officials were polite and inquisitive, but did not indicate how they planned to change the program, if at all.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife is waiving fishing fees on Sept. 2.
People may fish Saturday without having to buy a sport-fishing license. This is an opportunity for licensed anglers to introduce non-angling friends and children to fishing and the outdoors.
All fishing regulations, such as bag and size limits, gear restrictions, report card requirements and fishing hours and stream closures, remain in effect. Every angler must have an appropriate report card if they are fishing for steelhead, sturgeon, spiny lobster or abalone anywhere in the state, or for salmon on the Smith River.
CDFW reminds anglers that recreational salmon fishing in the Klamath-Trinity river system remains closed this season due to very low predicted adult returns.
By Gary Martin, Las Vegas Review-Journal
WASHINGTON — Democrats are charging the Trump administration of using a politically driven process to undermine protections to public lands as environmental groups gird for a legal battle to stop the shrinking of national monuments under review — including two in Nevada.
Gold Butte National Monument and Basin and Range National Monument were on a list of 22 national monuments designated by presidents since Jan. 1, 1996, that President Trump directed by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review.
Trump ordered the review to determine whether designations under the 1906 Antiquities Act should be rescinded or scaled back.