Winnemucca Blog

Reno Gazette-Journal :

Gracie is graduating from apple sauce to apples.

However, blueberries have become her favorite whole food.

The North American black bear, who arrived at Animal Ark Wildlife Sanctuary & Nature Center three months ago, has almost tripled in size.

She also has a dog as a cage companion.

The orphan bear is now 5 1/2 months old. She was brought to Animal Ark northeast of Reno after wildlife officials were alerted that she was in a backyard in Golconda, a Humboldt County community east of Winnemucca.

DirtBikeMagazine:

Bridgestone-shod rider Russ Pearson clinched his first AMA National Hare & Hound Championship at Winnemucca, Nevada. Pearson took the overall win on the 105-mile final race of the series, on October 19th, riding a Yamaha equipped with Bridgestone off-road tires.

Last year Pearson was runner-up in the championship to Yamaha & Bridgestone teammate, Ty Davis. This season, Pearson took three victories in the six-race series, and took the championship by an 11-point margin.

Photo by moophisto.

Las Vegas Sun:

Firefighters battling several large blazes across northern Nevada welcomed cooler temperatures and even rain in some places Monday, but a reprieve from the heat didn’t tame the potential for gusty, flame-throwing wind and a continued chance of thunderstorms.

“It is cooler than it has been,” Jamie Thompson with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in Winnemucca said early Monday. “But there are concerns about those winds.”

The Winters fire has scorched 187,000 acres, or nearly 300 square miles, of remote Nevada rangeland northeast of Winnemucca since Thursday. Burning in sagebrush and grass, the fire stretched 32 miles east from Midas and was 23 miles wide north to south, officials said.

Expenditures for wildlife water developments, a report on the search for a new Wildlife Director, and season setting for waterfowl are among the agenda items that the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners will consider at their meeting Aug 4-5 in Winnemucca.

The commission will convene at 1:30 p.m. Aug. 4 in the Winnemucca Convention Center. Its first action item is the development of a process to recruit a new department Director/Commission Secretary for the Nevada Department of Wildlife; Terry Crawforth retired as director July 15.

Another action item is the approval of the expenditure of $213,140 from upland game stamp revenues to fund wildlife water developments.

Water developments capture and store water for wildlife to use during dry seasons.

Read the rest in the Pahrump Valley Times.

Nevada Appeal:

Nevada’s deserts hold some of the greatest secrets in the West.

One such hidden jewel lies almost two hours east of Reno off Interstate 80.

The Rye Patch Recreation Area has been a favorite since it became a state park in 1971. The Bureau of Reclamation built the dam and reservoir in the mid-1930s to provide irrigation water for Lovelock farmers.

Not only does this park offer some great fishing for walleye, wipers and catfish, but it also provides good boating and personal watercraft opportunities.

Photo by Pink Pepper Photo.

KESQ 3:

Six firefighters have been injured — two seriously — during a burnover operation at the New York Peak fire northwest of Winnemucca.
Three of the six were flown to Humboldt General Hospital in Winnemucca. Two of them were then flown to the burn center at University Medical Center in Las Vegas.

The third was treated and released.

The other three firefighters were driven to the hospital in Winnemucca, treated and released after the incident yesterday afternoon.

Reno Gazette-Journal:

Grant is just one of a growing number of homeowners in the area trying to sell a home. According to the Northern Nevada Multiple Listing Service, 5,237 single-family homes were listed for the second quarter of 2006, but only 1,432 were sold during that period.

Compare that with the same April-June period two years ago during the peak of the housing boom, when 2,376 homes were listed and 1,881 homes sold.

The 2006 second quarter inventory shows more than a year’s worth of homes on the market, which has heated up competition among sellers and has given fewer buyers more options.

The recipe has led to more aggressive pricing and a median time on the Reno-Sparks market that stretched to 71 days during the second quarter of 2006. That’s 34 percent longer than was the case the same period last year, and the longest waiting time during any second quarter since 2000 when it was also 71 days, according to the Bureau of Business & Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Photo by Zack Sheppard

Reno Gazette-Journal:

On Monday, Mormon crickets were swarming around the only restaurant open for lunch in Austin. Last week, they invaded the town’s park and public swimming pool, covering the complex in a shifting blanket of milling, ravenous, 2-inch-long bugs.

“Once they were there, they were crawling over everything,” said Jan Morrison, owner of Main Street Shops in Austin. “Within the space of an hour or two, it was just like a sheet.”

Contrary to hopes experts expressed earlier in the year, Nevada’s cricket infestation shows little sign of letting up. Now seven years in duration, it is expected to cover 10 million to 12 million acres by the end of summer.

Photo by bintibee.

Brad Buys a Yearling:

News outlets from across the country and world have flocked to this northern Nevada town to witness the cloned mules race. Correspondents from Wired Magazine, London’s Daily Telegraph, Associated Press, a documentary team, and many other news outlets were all plying their trade at the meet.

Reporters looking for a technical angle concentrated on the scientists and geneticists. Everyone wanted to get a word with mule enthusiast and clone project funder Don Jacklin, pictured on the right with one of the project scientists. Mr. Jacklin campains cloned mule Idaho Gem.