page_title: Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge
section_title: Flora, fauna, and management
hierarchical_section_title: Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge / Flora, fauna, and management
caption_attribution_description: English: Bighorn sheep in Montana, USA.
context_page_description: The Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge is a National Wildlife Refuge located in the U.S. state of Montana. The refuge surrounds Fort Peck Reservoir and is 915,814 acres in size. It is the second-largest National Wildlife Refuge in the lower 48 states of the United States, and the largest in Montana. Created in 1936, it was originally called the Fort Peck Game Range. It was renamed in 1963 after Montana artist Charles M. Russell, a famous painter of the American West. In 1976, the "range" was made a "refuge".
context_section_description: There are four major types of habitat within the refuge: river bottom, riparian zones and wetlands, shoreline, and upland (including forested coulees and prairie).
  From 1938 to 1976, the CMR NWF was administered jointly by the United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior.  As a game range, the area was not as protected as it might have been, and both agencies struggled to maintain the range's ability to support wildlife while also permitting large numbers of domestic livestock to graze there.  In 1976, Congress enacted the Game Range Act, which ended the joint administration of the refuge and transferred authority for its management from the Bureau of Land Management to the Fish and Wildlife Service.  As of 2010, the Army Corps of Engineers continues to have primary management authority for a portion of the refuge, with the FWS having secondary authority in these areas.  However, the Corps and the FWS have an agreement that allows the FWS to administer these areas for the Corps.  The Corps and FWS continue to jointly manage the lakeshore and recreational areas and sites associated with them.
  Management of the refuge is subject to several management plans and court decisions. In 1983, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in Schwenke v. Secretary of the Interior, 720 F.2d 571, that wildlife should be given limited priority to the resources on the refuge, rather than livestock grazing. Executive Order 7509 established wildlife population limits, beyond which wildlife had no priority claim. The court also held that the refuge should be administered according to the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966 and not the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. In April 1986, the National Park Service adopted an environmental impact statement and "decision of record" which established a resource management plan for the refuge. In 2009, the Ninth Circuit ruled in Silver Dollar Grazing Association v. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, No. 07-35612 (9th Cir., January 13, 2009) that habitat conditions could be used as a proxy for actual wildlife counts for purposes of meeting the conditions of Executive Order 7509.
  The refuge is administered from FWS offices in Lewistown, Montana.
  Fort Peck Reservoir, the fifth-largest man-made reservoir in the United States (by volume), backs up 134 miles (216 km) along the Missouri River. The reservoir is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and water levels in the lake are not part of the refuge's management plan.
  The largest population of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep outside the Rocky Mountains exist in the refuge. Significant populations of beaver, cougars, coyotes, mule deer, prairie dogs, porcupines, pronghorn, Rocky Mountain elk, and white-tailed deer exist within the refuge. Threatened species, endangered species, and species of concern in the refuge include the black-footed ferret, black-tailed prairie dog, burrowing owl, gray wolf, grizzly bear, least tern, mountain plover, northern leopard frog, pallid sturgeon, piping plover, greater sage-grouse, sicklefin chub, and sturgeon chub. The site also contains a large population of sharp-tailed grouse as well as approximately 235 other bird species. The refuge is home to 4,000 prairie elk, the largest remaining prairie elk herd in the United States.  Two permittees have grazed bison as "domestic livestock" in a limited fashion, though their leases are mostly on adjacent lands.
caption: The largest population of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis) outside the Rocky Mountains lives within the CMRNWR.
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