Finally, someone in NDOW has the guts to stand up and say our air operations are being diminished. According to Dave Rice, NDOW biologists have finally admitted what HUNTER'S ALERT has been saying for years.

Hunting & Fishing
By Dave Rice
Excerpts from Reno Gazette-Journal Wednesday, September 11, 2002

I was completely surprised to learn from Stiver that aerial chukar surveys conducted annually for the past 27 years were dropped this year which is a real loss to hunters. In past years, 11 survey sites were flown and the number of birds that flushed were counted. Stiver says these surveys were a very good and reliable indication of bird densities over a large area, resulting in his annual hunting forecast of what degree of success (poor, fair, good or excellent) hunters could expect throughout much of northern Nevada.

Chukar hunters found this survey extremely useful and waited anxiously for it to become available. I am told the reason it was discontinued is purely financial, a decision not made by Stiver, but by the Chief of Game and approved by the administrator. It was their decision that the budget of "air operations" as it is known, needed to be cut and the chukar surveys got the axe. What a shame.