26th Annual Meeting and Symposium of the
Desert Tortoise Council, March 16-18, 2001
Abstracts

Status of the Northern & Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan

Richard E. Crowe
Bureau of Land Management, California Desert District 6221 Box Springs Blvd., Riverside, CA 92507-0714

One of several land use plans in progress that address the recovery of the desert tortoise in the California Desert, the Northern & Eastern Colorado Desert Coordinated Management Plan (Plan) focuses on the Northern and Eastern Colorado Desert Recovery Units and a small portion of the Joshua Tree Recovery Unit. The planning area, 5.5 million acres in size, lies mostly in the Sonoran Desert Ecoregion. It is bounded by I-40 (north), the Colorado River (east), the Imperial Sand Dunes and Coachella Canal (south), and the West Mojave Plan (west). The major cooperating agencies are the Bureau of Land Management (lead), Joshua Tree National Park, U.S. Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma for the Chocolate Mountains Aerial Gunnery Range, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and California Department of Fish & Game. Additional cooperators to the Plan include other federal, state, and local agencies as well as many interest groups. The Plan is fully ecosystem management in scope. Plan decisions will amend or augment existing land use plans of the cooperating federal agencies for the desert tortoise and about 60 other species and habitats and may be of use by other agencies and companies with interests in the planning area. There are two Federally listed species: desert tortoise and Coachella Valley milkvetch. The Plan is not an HCP.

Plan Status

The draft plan and EIS (DEIS) was issued February 26, 2001 for a 90 days public review. Hardcopy and CDROM versions may be requested through any of the BLM offices in the California Desert or through Dick Crowe via rcrowe@ca.blm.gov or the telephone number above. One may also review the document at the following BLM website: http://www.ca.blm.gov/cdd/landuseplanning.html. A schedule of public meetings on the DEIS is available.

Plan Overview

The Plan addresses four alternatives. This review focuses on the Preferred Alternative.

1. Establish three Desert Wildlife Management Areas (DWMAs): Chemehuevi, 875,000 acres; the Chuckwalla, 820,000 acres; and all of Joshua Tree National Park. Major prescriptions include:
   • apply long-standing mitigation measures
   • eliminate ephemeral livestock grazing and retain perennial grazing but eliminate forage competition during tortoise spring and fall emergence
   • construct tortoise fencing along the entirety of Federal and state highways along/through DWMAs
   • simplify compensation for authorized actions to 5:1 ratio
   • separate DWMAs and burro herd management areas
   • allow no competitive race events
   • acquire private and state lands
   • limit to 1% new surface disturbance on Federal lands, adjusted for successful reclamation
   • adjust critical habitat and tortoise Category I to DWMA boundaries
2. Establish two kinds of Wildlife Habitat Management Areas (WHMAs): Bighorn sheep, on a meta-population basis Multi-species for about 58 plant and wildlife species of concern (complementary to restricted areas and DWMAs)
   Prescriptions include standard species mitigation, proactive measures, acquisition of private lands, and compensation for disturbance in 4 plant communities: playa, dunes, microphyll woodland, chenopod scrub. Approximately 137 drinkers are proposed for bighorn sheep and desert mule deer south of I-10.
3. Reduce the area and appropriate management levels for Wild Burros by about half and eliminate from national wildlife refuges and Picacho State Recreation Area along the Colorado River.
4. Close about 20% of the Routes of Travel that existed prior to 1994 (16% from the Desert Protection Act of 1994 and 3% for various criteria: redundancy, non-use, species proximity. Close some washes systems.

The combined areas of current restricted areas (wilderness, park, and military lands), DWMAs, and WHMAs put 80% of the known/predicted occurrence for all special status species into conservation management. Management areas are hierarchical with management prescriptions being commensurate with species sensitivities.