Mule deer in a field adjacent to Ash Canyon Road in west Carson City on March 18, 2026.<\/p>\n
Driving, it only takes 10 minutes to get from the tall conifers on the west side of Carson City to the sagebrush scrubland on the east side. In between stands the downtown core and its urban forest. Life takes many shapes in these different but intersecting ecological zones, making Nevada\u2019s capital a wonderland of vegetation and wildlife.<\/p>\n
This spring \u2014 which went from record highs in March to snow showers in April \u2014 Nevada Department of Wildlife Game Biologist Becca Carniello was watching the green-up in the forest of the western slopes. She helps monitor the black bear and mule deer that make Carson City their home along with over 60,000 human beings.<\/p>\n
Up Ash Canyon, along the creek that runs through it, she pointed out a game trail, a sunlit path to the water. Just beyond the thicket of alder and willow stood a towering and singed conifer. It appeared to be a Jeffrery pine but, upon further inspection by Carniello, was identified as a ponderosa pine, likely burned in the 2004 Waterfall Fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrickly ponderosa,\u201d she said, feeling a fallen cone at the base of the tree.<\/p>\n
Prickly ponderosa cones contrast with Jeffrey cones, which, she said, leave the impression of a \u201cgentle Jeff.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the time, the bears in the foothills were out of hibernation. They were leaving their dens and foraging on new grasses. Later in summer and fall they would move to manzanita berries, huckleberries, rosehips, buffaloberries and pinenuts. Hopefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cEighty-five percent of the diet of black bears is plant matter,\u201d Carniello said of the omnivore species.<\/p>\n
There are 600 to 700 blacks bears in the state of the Nevada, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to go off a study done back in 2020 that estimated our bear density in the Sierra Nevada at 12.4 bears\/38 square miles to guess how many might be along the western and eastern edges of Carson City. I would say there are probably 20 to 30 or so bears that have home ranges that span part of that area,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Though black bears live permanently in the Carson Range, Pine Nut and Sweetwater Mountains, they wander down into the valleys of Western Nevada in search of food, especially in stressed years of drought or late freezes that disrupt natural food production. Carniello said that calls to NDOW about bears, including many from Carson City, will triple in such years. She pointed out the creeks in western Carson provide corridors straight into town, toward bird feeders, fruit and oak trees and unsecured trash cans.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re weighing the cost and benefit of these things, and they\u2019re trying to be the most efficient,\u201d Carniello said. \u201cWe have to take responsibility to make it difficult for them to get our food.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Bear-resistant trash cans and electric fencing can help, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can always help people willing to coexist,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Another creature Carson humans coexist with is the mule deer. According to maps of game management units provided by NDOW, the section of Carson Range that includes western Carson has an estimated population of 1,200 mule deer. For the two units on the eastern side of the city \u2014 into Storey, Lyon and Douglas counties \u2014 the estimate is around a 1,000 mule deer.<\/p>\n
Though some deer winter at lower elevations and head to higher ground in the mountains come summer, \u201cthe deer you see in town remain in town because they\u2019re safer from predators.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have everything they need,\u201d Carniello said. \u201cThey probably do migrate but probably don\u2019t get too far from town.\u201d<\/p>\n
These urban deer can be found in yards and fields on the west side and on the other side of downtown, sometimes blocking traffic on Roop Street. They nibble grass and forbs and woody shrubs and lend themselves to urban legends like the famed late buck called \u201cthe King of Carson.\u201d The King is now immortalized in mural form on the back of the community center.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, a hungry deer will pretty much eat any type of vegetation,\u201d Carniello said.<\/p>\n
Scott Neuffer
Mule deer in a field adjacent to Ash Canyon Road in west Carson City on March 18, 2026.<\/p>\n
Whether bear or deer, the biologist advised keeping wildlife wild. In Carson, this means mountain lions, blue grouse, quail, hawks and eagles, a medley of songbirds and the brook trout in the streams of the west slopes that feed the Carson River, which itself snakes around Prison Hill.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople also belong in the ecosystem, but that comes with responsibility, and the responsibility is making sure you\u2019re keeping those animals as wild as possible,\u201d Carniello said.<\/p>\n
Bob Tonseth, open space maintenance foreman for the city, balances what is wild with what is domestic and cultivated. The Carson City Parks, Recreation and Open Space Department and the Public Works Department share maintenance responsibilities for the city\u2019s urban canopy of over 6,200 trees lining parks and public right of way.<\/p>\n
This canopy includes Fremont cottonwoods \u2014 a native species \u2014 like the Nevada Bicentennial Tree at the corner of West Washington and North Division streets downtown. City officials believe this tree dates to the 19th century. A 1940s photo provided by Public Works shows the tree already reaching impressive stature beside what was then a rail line.<\/p>\n
The urban tree inventory also includes transplants like elms, oaks, crabapples, green ash trees and Austrian pines.<\/p>\n
Strolling under a canopy of cottonwoods at Mills Park \u2014 large trees predating the modern park \u2014 Tonseth pointed out neighboring locust trees, maples and a few Scotch pines along the walkways and stream meandering through the greenery. Tonseth is a certified arborist.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be a hundred degrees outside, but walking in here, it\u2019s cool,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of the idea of an urban canopy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Urban forests provide shade for humans and fellow creatures and absorb stormwater. They improve property values and enrich one\u2019s mental wellbeing, Tonseth said. For 30 years, the city has been certified with the National Arbor Day Foundation, proving management of its tree inventory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Tree City USA Program recognizes towns and counties across the nation that have implemented successful urban forestry programs,\u201d according to the Nevada Division of Forestry. \u201cGaining and retaining Tree City USA recognition is an award a community\u2019s citizens and tree workers can take pride in. Equally important is the improved health and longevity of their community\u2019s trees.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tonseth, Justin Tiearney \u2014 public works operations manager \u2014 and others help maintain the city\u2019s century-old cottonwoods. Tonseth oversees the city\u2019s open space trees as well, like the historic grove of elms and cottonwoods at Silver Saddle Ranch in east Carson.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrimming, we eliminate hazards,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t trim the structure. We let them grow naturally.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city recently began cataloguing what\u2019s called the cottonwood gallery along the Carson River. The current estimate is for 14,000 to 23,000 cottonwoods within city limits in that area, Tonseth said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis includes age ranges from sapling to fully mature trees,\u201d he said, noting their cotton-like, seed-bearing fluff appears in late spring. \u201cI do like the cottonwoods. They\u2019re great at providing habitat. They\u2019re huge, beautiful trees in their own special way.\u201d<\/p>\n
From the urban forest to the river fringes, one landmass of Carson City stands out monolithically. Prison Hill looks bleak from the highway, but, according to Carson City Senior Natural Resource Specialist Marenna Lovejoy, the hill is hiding treasures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hillside right now looks brown from this distance. You wouldn\u2019t think there is anything interesting up there,\u201d Lovejoy said on a journey to the west-facing hillside. \u201cBut there are lots of beautiful colors in the desert. You just have to know how to find them.\u201d<\/p>\n
As yearly precipitation dwindles in the rain shadow of the Sierra, the Prison Hill area, lacking the riparian abundance of the river corridor on its eastern flank, still sees varieties of life quicken, adapt and persist. A cursory inventory would note the clumps of pinyon and juniper as well as shrubs like sage, bitterbrush, desert peach, rabbitbrush, horsebrush and Mormon tea. Squirreltail, needlegrass, Sandberg bluegrass and Great Basin wild rye are some of the bunchgrass species that thrive on the slopes.<\/p>\n
On this journey, Lovejoy was too late for monkey flower, which is being studied by state and federal authorities for possible protection, but was not too late for sulphurflower buckwheat, cushion buckwheat, Hooker\u2019s balsamroot and desert paintbrush. Dabs of yellow and red seemed suspended in larger textures of brush. From a stand of rabbitbrush, tiny, elongated bells of rock cress emerged delicate and tremulous. In the Prison Hill saddle just north of Stegosaurus Ridge, lupine revealed itself as purple fire.<\/p>\n
Lovejoy pointed out native brushes create their own microclimates. In the individual understories, in the warm season, one can see bunchgrass and wildflowers interwoven.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe wildflowers occupy different spaces, little niches,\u201d she said. \u201cNative pollinators rely on this diversity of flora.\u201d<\/p>\n
As opposed to a monoculture, the unique species in Carson City create a resilient landscape, Lovejoy maintained. A landscape that survives fire and flood, that carries its human and nonhuman inhabitants into the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard not to be happy when you\u2019re outside looking at this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Driving, it only takes 10 minutes to get from the tall conifers on the west side of Carson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-798795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}