Habitat protection is clearly the road to recovery. The area was established in 1976 but has continued to be roaded, grazed, mined, and ORVed to death. This is all bighorn critical habitat managed by the BLM in California, including its 189,423 acre share of the recently designated Santa Rosa Mountains National Monument. A previous suit by the Center resulted in a legal settlement removing livestock from the 17,982 acres of bighorn critical habitat within the San Bernardino National Forest. Through the two legal actions, livestock have been removed from all federally managed desert bighorn critical habitat.
Livestock threaten the sheep by grazing off desert grasses and spreading wildlife diseases.
Once critical habitat was designated for the two species, however, both agencies agreed to review the project anew under the more stringent federal requirements that critical habitat not be destroyed or adversely modified. The critical habitat areas were recently designated in response to legal settlements reached by the Center, Christians Caring for Creations, The Jumping Frog Research Institute and other groups. Blue Rock is the first previously-approved development in the Bay Area that has been stopped to protect a listed species' critical habitat. The case was argued by Deborah Reames of Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund. The Endangered Species Act distinguishes between the minimal need to avoid driving species extinct and the more proactive requirement to recover them to non-endangered status.