Opinion ID: 181487
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Management Plan for the Refuge

Text: After Congress designated most of the Kofa Refuge as a wilderness area in 1990, and in an attempt to coordinate the dual purposes of the Kofa Wilderness and Refuge, the Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a management plan. Kofa National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness Interagency Management Plan (1997) (Management Plan). [2] The plan, which received public review and comment, was intended to ensure that future management decisions and techniques concerning the Kofa Wilderness were compatible with the Wilderness and Refuge Acts. The plan recognized the purpose of the Kofa Wilderness in preserving bighorn sheep: Historically, Kofa ... ha[s] played a central wildlife and wildlands conservation role in western Arizona. To counter dwindling populations of desert bighorn sheep in the earlier part of the century, a management theme relating to the recovery of the species had become necessary beyond the establishment of legal protection for the species under the Arizona State Game code. Thus, a clear and dominant strategy for the management of these historically rocky, waterless sierras ... was designed specifically for the recovery of bighorn sheep populations. Management Plan at 2 (second ellipsis in original) (footnote omitted). The plan stated that the Service and the BLM would continue important efforts on behalf of the bighorn sheep. Id. at 3. The plan acknowledged that, although the wilderness designation of the land would not chang[e] the purposes of these areas or the importance of current activities, the designation would call for the consideration of these activities within the larger ecological contexts and within national wilderness goals inherent in the Wilderness Act of 1964. Id. The plan stated that [t]he needs of the species and the requirements of the Act are not necessarily in conflict. In fact, the habitat management work done to benefit bighorn sheep, including water development, could have a positive influence on the natural cycles of predation and succession for a diversity of life in the desert without detraction of wilderness attributes and values. Id. at 39-40. After espousing a broad goal to reconcile the Wilderness and Refuge Acts in the Kofa Wilderness, the plan discussed comprehensive planning objectives for the area. The plan addressed many issues, including protection of wilderness values, wildlife and habitat management, law enforcement and emergency services, and Native American religious access. Id. at 5-7 (some capitalization omitted). With respect to wildlife protection, the plan explained that the Service is responsible to carry out a dual, but nonetheless interrelated, role of managing for bighorn sheep within the context of wilderness. Id. at 37. According to the plan, the Service would use minimum tools in order to maintain[ ] an optimal desert bighorn sheep population. Id. at 53.