Eagles and Ag Tour serves dual purpose

Imagine a tourist attraction with the potential to draw thousands of eco-tourists who would spend on rooms, restaurants, perhaps a spin at the roulette wheel.

Imagine a tourist draw that requires no construction, no decoration, no payments to high-priced celebrities.

Imagine a tourist draw that brings no traffic snarls, no pall of pollution, no resident complaints.

Imagine a county that could just say no to all of that.

The Douglas County annual agri-tourism event, the Eagles and Agriculture Carson Valley Tour and Workshop, held the weekend of February 21, promotes not business, but rather the benefits agriculture provides to the community.

The tour teaches about eagle habits, habitat and agriculture in the Carson Valley.

Each spring,when the cows calve, bald eagles soar in to feed on the nutrient-rich afterbirth found in the fields.

In 2003, 35 bald eagles were sighted in four hours.

The tour takes six busloads of agri-tourists to visit area ranches and talk with the rancher in a casual, personal setting.

The event was booked solid the first year, with 200 attendees, says organizer Dan Caffer, resource conservation and development coordinator with the U.S.

Department of Agriculture.

Four years later 350 bird watchers went on the tour, a number purposely limited.

Total tourists for all events topped 600.

"This is not a business function," Caffer says."It is focused on education about agriculture.

We need to support watersheds."

Eagles and Agriculture is supported by 21groups, including Great Basin Bird Observatory, Lahontan Audubon Society, Carson Valley Historical Society, area businesses and a host of local and state government resource management agencies.

To advertise the event, press releases are mailed to area newspapers plus a few in California such as Placerville, says Lisa Voss, tourism manager at the Carson Valley Chamber of Commerce.A grant from the Nevada Tourism Board pays to print postcards set out in brochure racks.

A small ad is placed in Nevada magazine.Word of mouth is the primary publicity.

The Carson Valley Inn set aside a block of 36 rooms for eagle watchers, and was the site of the Friday evening reception, the Saturday buffet lunch, and the photo workshop.

However, the Inn provides function space at cost and supports the event for conservation rather than profit motives, says Debra Long, director of operations.

The only promotion of the event is an article in the "Insider" a publication sent to past patrons of the Carson Valley Inn.

"This year 36 percent of tour participants came from out of town, compared to 10 percent last year," said Skip Sayre, executive director of the Carson Valley Tourism and Visitors Authority."This year we increased the pricing because we saw that demand far exceeded the supply.We wanted to build an account for the event in the future."

Costs ranged from $20 to $50 each for events that included the bus tour and a reception with a speaker on birds of prey.

The Owl Prowl, a shuttle tour limited to 20, visited farm barns.

Thirty people paid for a photography workshop and another 30 signed on for a Sunday Carson River canoe trip.

Carson tourism officials are talking with nature tourism experts about birding in Nevada, says Sayre.

The eagle is the most desired wildlife sighting, according to Bob Garrison of Nature Tourism Planning, on contract with the Nevada Commission on Tourism.

"It's an interesting business question," says Sayre."What shape should the event take in future? It has tremendous potential to grow.

From a commercial standpoint, how do we use this phenomenon to attract tourists?"

The catch with eco-tourism is avoiding undue impact.And not just on wildlife.

Tourists are given a handout on correct calving cow etiquette.

The eagles are viewed from 300 yards away.

At an after-event critique, sponsors discuss options such as spreading the event over two weekends, identifying public places for people to pull off the road and view the birds from private cars, convincing more ranchers to allow people on their property and the liability issues that spawns.

Carson Valley is home to 120 birds of prey species.

Golden Eagles nest in the Pinenut and Carson ranges.

Bald Eagles nest in Eagle Valley and at Lake Lahontan.