Department of Fish and Game Director Boyd Gibbons urged that proposed federal desert protection acts retain hunting and research access in key portions of the desert to benefit wildlife.
Writing on behalf of the Department and California hunters, Gibbons in June sent letters to U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein CDCalif.) and U.S. Rep. Rick Lehman (D-Calif.) urging that their legislation, S. 23. and HR 518, allow continued hunting and Fish and Game access for research and active wildlife management.
Gibbons urged that the Bureau of Land Management (ELM) retain jurisdiction over the East Mojave and Hunter Mountain/Last Chance Range expansions of Death Valley. If jurisdiction is given to the National Park Service, he recommended that "National Preserve" status be granted these areas. Either option would assure continued hunting there.
"Maintaining healthy wildlife populations in this desert environment requires active, not passive, management; and hunting is integral to that management," wrote Gibbons.
He noted that the Department's active wildlife management program has helped place more than 770 watering sites for wildlife in San Bernardino County, and worked for more than 20 years to help bighorn sheep rebound from low numbers to today's thriving population.
Gibbons said he thinks the federal proposals offer "a means to further safeguard the California desert, but I am concerned that neither our Department's important efforts at scientific research and managing wildlife be foreclosed nor the hunting public be shut out of this region we have historically used.
"We have to gain access into the desert to benefit its habitat," said Gibbons.
| BY MARK
ARAX TIMES STAFF WRITER FRESNO-Federal drug agents stalked an airplane from the Mexican border to the high desert of Inyo County on Tuesday, and with the help of a Navy helicopter arrested four men and seized half a ton of cocaine valued at $75 million, federal and local authorities disclosed Wednesday. The four men, who were not identified by name but included a pilot from Riverside and two Mexican nationals, were being taken from Inyo County to federal court in Fresno, where a detention hearing is set for this afternoon. Assistant U.S. Atty. Carl Faller in Fresno said the seizure was one of the largest ever in the 11-county |
Eastern District.
"That's a big bust by our standards," he said. U.S. Customs agents flying at high altitude spotted the Cessna 210 on radar Tuesday between Calexico and Tucson. Federal authorities said the aircraft was flying low-hedgehopping-in the manner of drug smugglers trying to evade radar. After discovering that the aircraft had no registered flight plan, agents said, the Customs plane began following it. The plane touched down on an abandoned road near the Inyo County town of Darwin. About that time, a second government plane operated by Drug Enforcement Administration agents spotted a truck heading toward the Cessna and gave chase. As three men loaded kilo bags of |
cocaine from the
aircraft to the truck, one of the government planes buzzed overhead and the men
drove off, agents said. The government planes, unable to keep chase, radioed
for help from nearby China Lakes Naval Weapons Center. A Navy Blackhawk helicopter had no trouble tracking down the suspects, three of whom had abandoned the truck and were running through the desert scrub. "We had the INS, the DEA. Customs, federal prosecutors and four desperadoes come through here," said Lone Pine Airport manager Bill Woodward, where the Cessna was being stored Wednesday. "It was quite a day." Special correspondent Benett Kessler contributed to this story. |