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Feds propose habitat change for bighorns |
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Saturday, 04 August 2007 |
 This herd of endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep needs all the help it can get to survive in its high-altitude homeland, which has prompted the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to propose designating 417,500 acres of mostly federal land along the Sierra front as critical habitat for bighorns. File photo By Jon Klusmire
Register Staff
The rocky homeland of the endangered Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep has been proposed to be designated as “critical habitat” in an effort to provide additional protection for the bighorn herds that roam the high country in Inyo County.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently unveiled a “proposed rule” that, if eventually adopted, would designate about 417,500 acres of the Sierra front as “critical habitat” for the bighorns. Virtually all the land proposed for the habitat designation is located either in the Inyo National Forest, on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management or in other forms of federal ownership. The proposed critical habitat designation includes every area in Inyo and Mono counties where the bighorns are known to occupy, plus some areas that do not host a herd, but have been deemed critical to the various herds’ survival.
Public comments on the proposed designation are being sought by the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), and will be accepted until the end of September. In addition, the agency is also accepting written requests for public hearings on the proposal.
Also, the FWS is preparing a draft economic analysis of the potential economic impacts of the proposed critical habitat designation. That document will be “released for public review and comment at a later date,” according to the FWS.
The moves to designate critical habitat for the bighorns come in response to a court order stemming from a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity.
A “critical habitat” designation does not automatically change how federal lands are managed or change the current uses of the land, but does require an additional review by the FWS to ensure that any activity or project does not adversely impact the designated critical habitat, according to the FWS.
The areas proposed for the designation are broken down into 12 “units,” and stretch from from Mt. Warren west of Mono Lake in the north, to Olancha Peak, west of the Owens Dry Lake, in the south.
“The acreage includes open upland, montane and alpine habitats with rocky areas along the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains from about 4,000 feet to approximately 14,500 feet,” according to a press release from the FWS.
The areas proposed as critical habitat include the two currently state-designated California Bighorn Sheep Zoological Areas, located on the front of the Sierra between Mt. Whitney and Onion Valley and north of Onion Valley to the Division Creek area.
The criteria for “essential habitat” for the nimble, shy Sierra Nevada bighorns describes the types of land generally not hospitable or heavily used by humans. The criteria include “non-forested habitats” with slopes greater or equal to 60 percent that also include plenty of rocky areas where the sheep can forage, mate and lamb while avoiding predators.
In addition to the steep, mostly inaccessible front face of the Eastern Sierra, the proposed critical habitat designation in many areas extends over the top of the Sierra ridgeline to include high-altitude meadows and other small sections of land in Toulumne, Fresno and Tulare counties.
Of the 417,500 acres of proposed critical habitat, about 1,000 acres are private lands located in the Mt. Warren (568 acres), Convict Creek (17) and Wheeler Ridge (398) units. The rest is federally managed land.
“Public comments in general, and particularly technical comments from local, state and federal agencies, will be very useful in focusing the final designation of critical habitat to those areas most essential for conservation of the species,” said Bob Williams, field supervisor for the Nevada U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is handling the designation process.
There is always some confusion about what a “critical habitat” designation does and doesn’t do.
According to the FWS, “critical habitat is a term in the Endangered Species Act … The designation of critical habitat does not affect land ownership or establish a refuge, wilderness, reserve, preserve or other conservation area.”
When federal agencies “undertake, fund or permit” activities that may affect critical habitat, those agencies “are required to consult with (FWS) to ensure such actions do not adversely modify or destroy designated critical habitat.”
In general, critical habitat is protected through “cooperative measures” outlined in the Endangered Species Act, with management policies and guidelines being the most common approaches to safeguarding the habitat in question, the FWS said.
The proposed critical habitat designations for bighorns in the Eastern Sierra include large swaths of land.
More than 100,000 acres are in Mono County, including the Mount Warren and Mount Gibbs “units” west and south of Mono Lake, and the Convict Creek unit.
In Inyo County, the habitat designations start in the Wheeler Ridge area, from Evolution Creek to the south, Mt. Tom in the middle and Mono Creek to the north.
Then there’s a bit of a gap in the proposed habitat designation. The next unit, Taboose Creek, starts at Big Pine Creek and stretches to Taboose Creek to the south.
Then the next two units run right up to each other, and cover the Sawmill Canyon area, north of Independence, and Mt. Baxter area, west of Independence. There is a bit of a narrow break at Onion Valley, and the Mt. Williamson unit covers the land from Onion Valley to Mt. Whitney. Again, there is a break in the land designation around Mt. Whitney, and then the last units in Inyo County include the Langley Peak and the Olancha Peak area, west of the Owens Dry Lake.
Two additional units up for the designation are farther west in Tulare County in the Golden Trout Wilderness Area.
The 12 areas represent “our best current assessment of areas determined to be occupied” by the endangered Sierra Nevada bighorns, the FWS proposal states. In addition, some areas where there were no bighorns were added because they were “found to be essential to the conservation” of the bighorns.
In Inyo and Mono counties, there were no bighorns in three of the 10 units – Convict Creek, Taboose Creek, Olancha Park – proposed as critical habitat.
Public comments on the proposed critical habitat designations will be accepted until Sept. 24, 2007. Written comments on the proposal should be submitted to the Field Supervisor, Nevada Fish and Wildlife Office, 1340 Financial Blvd., Suite 234, Reno, NV 89502, by e-mail to
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, or by facsimile to (775) 861-6301. Written requests for a public hearing will be accepted until Sept. 10, 2007.
A copy of the proposal and other information is available on the Internet at www.fws.gov/nevada.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 10 September 2007 )
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