Hunters embrace mapping project

What would you think if a stranger walked into your outdoor club meeting and asked the attendees to reveal their favorite hunting and fishing spots? What if he rolled out Nevada topographical maps and handed you and your friends a highlighter?

Many of us would think the guy was off his rocker, because no sane person would be brazen enough to ask hunters for that kind of protected information.

But that's exactly what Bill Geer has been doing at outdoor clubs across Montana's "Big Sky" country. And it's what Geer and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) plan to do in Nevada as they proceed through the intermountain West.

It's all part of the TRCP's Sportsman User Value Mapping Project, a program designed to protect the future of hunting by safeguarding the places we hunt. Once the director of Utah's Division of Wildlife Resources, Geer is director of the TRCP's Center for Western Lands.

"I've been a biologist for fish and wildlife for 37 years," he said. "I've worked with development for all those years, and this might be the most scientific job I've ever done. This might be the most effective."

The goal of the mapping project is not to gather pinpoint information on where a hunter shot a big bull or big buck. Rather, it is to create a database that will help wildlife- and land-management agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management or the U.S. Forest Service understand what areas are important to hunters and anglers, and have been for generations.

These agencies know where the animals are. They know where the best habitat is, but what they don't have is a firm understanding of where hunters hunt, Geer said, because hunters don't always hunt in the best habitat.

Knowing where hunters hunt and anglers fish will grow increasingly important as our population in the West continues to grow and energy development on public land intensifies in Nevada, as it has in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Consider the current push for solar- and wind-energy projects across the state. Many such projects, like those being considered in Lincoln County or near Searchlight, will have a direct impact on traditional hunting areas.

Geer shared a story about the Custer Rod and Gun Club in Great Falls, Mont. Its members wanted nothing to do with the TRCP mapping project until they saw its use during a meeting in which energy development on public lands was being discussed. Using some of the initial mapping data, a representative from Montana's Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks made an effective presentation outlining potential impacts of energy development on traditional hunting areas. After the meeting, Geer was invited back to the gun club and its members got busy with the highlighters.

"When (hunters) find out the suitability of public lands has changed due to industrial-type development, those lands are no longer suitable for hunting and fishing," Geer said. "So suddenly they have nothing left. When the public lands are gone, it's over. There's nothing left for the average person."

With the data gathered, Geer said he can tell land-managing agencies in Montana which piece of land is important to which hunting group. That ability now has some agencies asking Geer for copies of his data so they can use it during their planning. If Geer can get the funding, he hopes one day to have similar information for Nevada and nine other western states.

That's important, but perhaps the true value of the mapping project is it allows individuals and outdoor clubs to make their voices heard on a large scale, no longer lone voices in the wilderness.

Freelance writer Doug Nielsen is a conservation educator for the Nevada Department of Wildlife. His "In the Outdoors" column, published Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, is not affiliated with or endorsed by the NDOW. Any opinions he states in his column are his own. He can be reached at doug@takinitoutside.com.