48 NEBRASKAland • AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2018
wildlife management efforts in the Pine
Ridge.
Situated on the Ponderosa along
Squaw Creek Road is the old ranch
house that Lemmon and his family
lived in while he was manager. Now
having been converted to an office for
Commission wildlife biologists and
technicians, it gets many calls and
visits from hunters in the Pine Ridge
looking for tips.
The Ponderosa office has not only
played a central role for management
of nearby wildlife management areas
but also in research projects of the Pine
Ridge.
Some of the first deer monitoring
projects in Nebraska began there
decades ago. With a wooden box
trap, Lemmon and other staff caught
deer and placed colored streamers on
their ears for future observation. At
Ponderosa, for instance, they placed
orange streamers on the captures. At a
trapping site a little farther east, they
used pea green.
"We put the streamers on in
January or February," Lemmon
said. "In the fall of that year, one of
those buck mule deer fawns from the
Ponderosa was killed north of Lusk
(Wyoming) and one of the bucks
wearing a pea green one was killed
near Oshkosh."
Presently, the area has been central
to the Commission's mountain lion
research efforts and was the site of the
first cougar captured and collared in the
Pine Ridge. Of course, the GPS collars
used in today's monitoring efforts are
much different from methods used to
track wildlife in the beginning.
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Similar to so much of the Pine
Ridge, the Ponderosa has had a close
relationship with fire – some of it even
positive.
In the early 1980s, the Ponderosa
was the site of what still stands as the
largest successful prescribed burn in
the Pine Ridge. Agency staff burned
1,200 acres, improving the health of
the forest and plant community.
In 2000 wildfire struck 215 acres on
the property's west portion. Although
considered a misfortune at the time,
Schenbeck said the fire's effects
were largely beneficial as it thinned
Mule deer fawns and a doe visit an area burned by wildfires at Ponderosa Wildlife Management Area. The photograph was captured
with a camera trap.
