Sanduners

Lizard eyed for shielding

Group asks that reptile be studied for endangered list

Andrew Silva, Staff Writer

A lizard that can run on sand and swim beneath it should be protected in an area popular with off-highway vehicle riders, according a petition filed Monday by an environmental group.

The Dumont Dunes Off-Highway Vehicle Area, about 30 miles north of Baker, is a 10,500-acre sandy playground for about 140,000 off-road enthusiasts a year.

But it's also home to the Mojave fringe-toed lizard, which lives in sandy soil particularly dunes dry lake beds and river washes.

"The Amargosa river population is especially threatened because of the pounding it's taking from off-road vehicles," said Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist for the Center for Biological Diversity.

The center filed a formal petition to list the lizard as threatened or endangered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Under the federal Endangered Species Act, the service has 90 days to determine if the petition has enough information to trigger a full year-long review of the species.

If the more extensive review were to be done, it would determine whether the lizard should to be listed as threatened or endangered.

The petition seeks protection only for the population in that immediate area, including an area that stretches west into Death Valley National Park and to Coyote Holes just to the east.

The lizard, whose scientific name is Uma scoparia, ranges throughout the desert areas of San Bernardino, Riverside, Los Angeles and Inyo counties.

Patterson said the lizard is not doing especially well in those other areas, but the petition was drafted to focus on the population segment that's most clearly at risk, which is allowed under the Endangered Species Act.

The area to the west, in Death Valley National Park called Ibex Dunes, is off-limits to off-roaders but people do sometimes enter the area illegally.

"It's been a struggle to keep people out of there," said Alan Van Valkenburg, a park ranger at Ibex Dunes. "Mostly they do pretty good, but every so often someone gets in."

The lizard has no formal protection but is identified as "sensitive" by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which operates the Dumont Dunes Off-Highway Vehicle Area.

"The lizard does have a broad, broad range," said Doran Sanchez, spokesman for the BLM's desert district office in Moreno Valley. "We'll have to wait and see what the (Fish and Wildlife) service says about the distinct population segment."

A separate species, the threatened Coachella Valley fringe-toed lizard, was the subject of one of the first habitat-conservation plans designed to protect the animal but allow some development in the areas east of Palm Springs in Riverside County.

If the Mojave lizard were listed as endangered, it's not clear what management changes would have to be made.

The off-roading community is still bristling over the closure of 49,300 acres at the Algodones Dunes in Imperial County to protect the threatened Pierson's milkvetch, a plant native to the dunes.

The 40 mile-long stretch of dunes is wildly popular, drawing hundreds of thousands of off-road enthusiasts.

Any proposal that could lead to limits at Dumont Dunes, which is a wide-open play area, is certain to anger off-roaders.

Scott, you're now AWAKE...

Sign up for your FoDD membership and sign up for an ASA membership (free) and help the the other 24,500+ members make a difference in keeping the dunes open,,, ALL of them!

Join the ASA

FYI... the American Sand Association has members in all 50 states and even several countries, they don't all dune just at Glamis, I know, I'm one of them...

If your interested in a National OHV organization please consider the BlueRibbon Coalition, about 660,000 members strong.

BlueRibbon Coalition Website

Money shouldn't be the drive for people to help keep their favorite place to ride trash free and more important: open!

There was a good turn out despite the amount of people that didn't help though. It was just something that bothered me so I figured I'd get it off my chest and post it up.

A HUGE thanks to the volunteers of Friends of Dumont Dunes and Suspensions Unlimited for making this the best annual cleanup ever!!! And even a HUGE thanks to the BLM for their help this year...with the food...

I hear you Pete, it amazes me why others don't understand what is at stake... I handed out flyers Friday afternoon about the cleanup at the pay area. Many people came in and had their $20.00's in hand to pay for a permit. I told them it was a BLM Free weekend due to the cleanup on Sat. Most said they would do it, how many did ??? The cleanup had more than 300 people as the t-shirts tickets ran out about 10am.

Maybe next year we can take shifts at the pay station to hand out flyers and get the word out??? Would anyone be willing to give up another hour of dune time

It was also nice meeting you Pete...

Teddy Roosevelt Said It Best

An Opinion on Allegiance

By Del Albright, BlueRibbon Ambassador

"We have room for but one flag (in this country)....and we have room for but one sole loyalty, and that is a loyalty to the American people," said President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907. Teddy was big on every American being just that - an American. He was strong on equality and fairness to everyone, regardless of creed, religion, birthplace or origin. But he also said, "...this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American and nothing but an American....There can be no divided allegiance here."

Since the days of being on my grand Dad's knee and hearing stories of the old days, I have been a flag-waver and believer in our country. I learned long ago while fighting overseas for our country, that the foundation of freedom is our liberty and right to choose and express ourselves. That stems from having an allegiance to your beliefs. We can still learn from Teddy Roosevelt today.

I found the above quote in the Spring 2006 issue of Range[1] magazine. I read my quarterly copy of Range from cover to cover because it is about freedom, liberty and the land we all love here in the USA . It is also about an allegiance to a lifestyle.

Allegiance is defined as the obligation of support and loyalty to one's country and/or government. When people build a nation, design and fly a flag, and pledge allegiance to that nation, it is something to behold. It cannot be undone by mere words and threats. It endures through history.

We also have some semblance of allegiance in the recreation world. In motorized recreation, we are at war - perhaps a "cold" war; but nonetheless a battle to save what we believe in. Special interest groups, motivated more by greed and power than anything else, want to see our form of recreation shut down, or at best limited to arenas and OHV parks.

I am not going to stand by idly while someone attempts to curtail my freedom in favor of another. We are about equality and fairness, as well as freedom. My allegiance to my sport and my foundation of freedom spur me to fight!

These radical groups want to limit, curtail or even "take" our liberties and shelve them. Range magazine is one publication that constantly fights against this "taking." It focuses on the western lifestyle, founded in ranching, farming, and living off the land - a way of life that is being threatened to extinction. However, ranchers and recreationists have much in common.

Like our ranching friends, if motorized recreationists have no land on which to recreate, we lose our way of life. There is no way I can accept a power-hungry special interest group "taking" my liberties. Unfortunately, they have more money and influence than we do in recreation; but we must not let down our efforts. We must continue our allegiance to what we believe in and do.

That means, in my opinion, that we must also build stronger and better organizations like the BlueRibbon Coalition (www.sharetrails.org) that fight for us and our rights. We must learn to develop stronger allegiances to those groups, clubs, organizations and politicians that ARE on our side and working for us. Yes, there are things that always need fixing and improvements in any outfit; but without our allegiance - our loyalty - our dues - what we do have won't have enough oomph to help us.

One politician that comes to mind that is helping us, and bringing some common sense back to politics, especially the Endangered Species Act, is Congressman Richard Pombo. There are others too, and our job is to support those folks that support us. Our job is to build allegiances to folks in politics who are our friends and believe the way we do. Find out in your area who you can trust, build an allegiance to, and help fight for what you believe in.

In my research I have come to the conclusion that the fight for public lands is not about the environment as much as it is about money and power. It's unfortunate that the average working person has to feel the impact of this directly on the thing that keeps us sane - our recreation.

Double sad is the fact that nearly everyone I know who recreates on public land is also a conservationist and environmentalist. We recreationists (and landowners like responsible ranchers) are the real environmentalists. Yet we are held in a dim light by those who speechify about protecting everything to some extreme degree.

Let's build our organizations and clubs stronger than ever before. Join everything you can afford to join. Support politicians who are fighting for us. Let's hang onto what Teddy told us. Build an allegiance to what you believe in, and pledge that allegiance!

###

Del Albright, internationally published columnist and BlueRibbon Ambassador, has published volumes on land use and access for over 25 years. The BlueRibbon Coalition is a national recreation group that champions responsible use of public and private lands, and encourages individual environmental stewardship. It represents over 10,000 individual members and 1,100 organization and business members, for a combined total of over 600,000 recreationists nationwide. 1-800-258-3742. www.sharetrails.org

For information about Range, please call 1-800-RANGE-4-U or visit www.rangemagazine.com

Here is a FREE org to join...

THE ASA

As most of you know, the Imperial Sand Dunes (Glamis) has been a hot box with the closures and all. Let's all hope that those wanting our sport to end never find a reason at Dumont Dunes for closure...

The video found here,

The Peirson's Milkvetch - A Case of ESA Gone Awry

is the ASA's 12 minute report on why this plant (PMV) should be de-listed from the Endangered Species Act (ESA) This was produced and sent to many of our elected officials locally and in Wash DC. Do your local representitives know how you feel about your dune time???

Send an email now to let them know!

If your not a member of the American Sand Association, please consider joining as membership is free and helps to, Unite, Inform and Mobilize our sand community.

Go here to sign up:

https://www.americansandassociation.org/join/

24,000 members and growing stronger every day... B)

Thanks,

Jim

Sanduners@aol.com

Here is one of my favorite pic's of Dumont.