Activists Taking Aim at Hunters : Start of Mojave Desert Hunt Is a Battle of Bighorn Sheep

Like two wary armies, anti-hunting activists and law enforcement personnel were out in force but stayed at arm’s length during the start of the bighorn sheep hunt over the weekend.

While eight hunters searched for sheep in two sectors of the eastern Mojave Desert, nobody seemed to be looking for trouble.

There were many sheep sightings but no killings and no arrests. A few sheep were chased by activists with airhorns, at least one hunter shot at a sheep and missed, and an activist accused the hunter’s companion of firing shots over his head. The companion denied it.

But the only confrontations were verbal, although both sides have the duration of the hunt through Dec. 18 to lose their cool.

That happened last year when the Department of Fish and Game conducted California’s first bighorn hunt in 114 years. It aroused protests of environmentalists who attempted to frighten away the sheep before hunters could take their shots.

Last year, seven activists were placed under citizen’s arrest by guide Loren Lutz, a retired Pasadena dentist who is president of the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep. One protester said his nose was broken by Lutz’s son Kennis, who denied the charge.

Saturday morning as the second hunt got under way the activists attempted to serve the Lutzes with a $1 million suit, which also names the DFG. But the Lutzes had long since left their camp in the Marble Mountains south of Interstate 40 to guide bow hunter Scott Young on horseback.

While the Lutzes watched unseen from a nearby ridge, an eight-car caravan comprising media and activists descended on the camp. Verena Gill, spokeswoman for the Hunt Saboteurs group, tried to hand a copy of the suit to Bob Plunkett, who had stayed behind to watch the camp.

Plunkett refused to accept it, so Gill placed it under the windshield wiper of a pickup truck.

“They just told me that if anybody shows up, don’t say nothin’ and I really don’t know what the hell’s going on,” Plunkett said. “I understand they had some trouble last year with the tree huggers.”

Close on the heels of the activists came DFG warden Marian Henry, who was assured by activist lawyer Daniel Whaley of Sacramento there would be no trouble.

“The people out here protesting are nonviolent people,” Whaley said.

“Good, I was hoping it was that way,” Henry said.

Henry added that she wasn’t involved in last year’s incidents and Gill, standing several feet away, spoke up, “You know very well that last year the protesters were locked in a horse trailer for 11 hours.”

Henry asked Gill, “What’s your name?”

Gill: “I don’t want to tell you, thank you.”

Henry: “That’s fine. Everybody has to realize, though, that everyone wants the bighorn sheep to survive.”

Gill: “Then you’re for us then?”

Henry: “I’m for the sheep.”

That was the only point on which they could agree. They differ greatly on the methodology of game management.

Later, the activists also tried to serve papers to Britt Wilson of the sheep society when he visited their primitive camp some 50 miles from Baker. Despite freezing night-time temperatures, most slept in tents and sleeping bags and a few were far out in the hills, awaiting the hunters each morning.

“The anti-hunters are very dedicated,” Wilson said. “We just wish they would use that dedication productively to help the animals.”

Last year all nine hunters, including a $70,000 auction winner on an exclusive advance hunt, were successful. An auction hunter who paid $59,000 for an exclusive permit to hunt alone before this weekend’s official start, also got his sheep this year. The others have 2 weeks to scout the Marble, Old Dad and Kelso ranges for the top trophy rams before pulling their triggers.

For a while Ursula Schalich, one of the three hunters assigned to the Marbles, had not been seen, and Gill was amused that DFG officials and sheep society members suspected she was an activist “plant” that somehow beat the lottery odds of 423-1 to draw one of the one-in-a-lifetime permits.

But Sunday Schalich was reported to be camping in a remote area with a guide.

Gill said if the hunters expect the activists to tire of the hunt after a few days and leave, “they’re in for a shock.”

She said the plan was to rotate a constant group of 30 to 35 people.

“If they’re trying to wait us out, they’ll be waiting two weeks,” she said.

“Good for them, I’ll be here, too,” said hunter Jeffrie O’Neil.

“All they want is heads on the wall,” Gill said.

She said the saboteurs’ tactics would be different than last year, featuring what she called “underground sabs” who would avoid direct confrontations.

“Stay in the back-country, stay hidden, and if they come for us, we’re running,” she said. “We don’t want to be citizen-arrested.”

In fact, several times she mentioned the possibility of citizen-arresting DFG personnel for parking illegally off desert roads and hunter Rene Estrella and his companion, Nino Rossini, for firing over the heads of Van Clothier of Del Mar and another activist Saturday.

Clothier said that Rossini “pulled a handgun and fired three shots-- blam , blam , blam --two over our left shoulders and one over our right.”

Rossini denied the accusation, which may have stemmed from the fact that Estrella fired three shots from his .308 magnum rifle at a sheep 400 yards away at about the same time. All the shots missed.

Clothier, on foot, was still stalking Estrella, in a four-wheel-drive truck, on Sunday.

As Estrella and Rossini stopped to point out several sheep high up the rocky slopes to a reporter and a photographer, Clothier and his activist partner jumped up from behind a rise 50 yards behind the group and yelled, then ran away.

Patrol Lt. Mike McBride of the DFG said: “These people are acting very professionally. They’ve been polite to us. We’ve been polite to them.”

Law enforcement vehicles were parked every few miles along Kelbaker Road between I-40 and I-15.

Young and the Lutzes said they were sitting in a concealed position looking for sheep Saturday when three activists chased about 11 animals down a draw, yelling and blowing airhorns.

Of the lawsuit, Kennis Lutz said, “I’m not too concerned about it,” but he admitted the activists were an annoyance.

“It’s a pain to deal with ‘em,” he said.

Loren Lutz said: “I don’t know anything about a lawsuit. I’m not even here.”

But he suggested it is a violation of federal statutes to harass wildlife.

Who would make an arrest on such a charge is questionable. Though the hunt is on land under jurisdiction of Bureau of Land Management, the BLM seems to be deferring authority to the Department of Fish and Game.

Henry, the DFG warden, was asked how she would handle a violation she might witness.

“I’d go get a (BLM) ranger,” she said.

But a BLM ranger said: “It’s their hunt. We’re just assisting them.”

They agree on one thing--the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s office would take anybody arrested to jail.

Next year, it will be simpler. A new state law will make it a second-offense felony to interfere with a hunt.

Meanwhile, there’s an uneasy peace in the eastern Mojave.