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

The Desert Tortoise in Northwest Arizona
and A Road More Traveled

Robert S. Hall and Rebecca L. Peck
Bureau of Land Management, Kingman Field Office, 2475 Beverly Avenue, Kingman, Arizona 86401

In order to accommodate increased traffic flow and to facilitate greater public safety, the Arizona Department of Transportation is currently expanding two existing highways in northwest Arizona (US 93 and State Route 68) from two lanes to four lanes. The highway expansion crosses Bureau of Land Management-administered public lands in Mohave County managed by the Kingman Field Office. Wildlife biologists identified impacts and mitigation and compensation for impacts to desert tortoises and their habitat. This paper will explore the identified impacts to Sonoran desert tortoise habitat in northwest Arizona resulting from highway construction, and mitigation and compensation actions that were successfully required and implemented.