NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
The National Park Service administers six large areas encompassing desert tortoise habitat in California, Nevada, and Arizona. Collectively these areas contain over seven million acres of land. Three national parks, Joshua Tree National Park (792,749 acres) and Death Valley National Park (3,367,627 acres) in California, and Saguaro National Park (91,452 acres) in Arizona are Federal areas that provide the highest degree of preservation of desert tortoises and their habitat due to congressional mandates. Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument (330,688 acres) in Arizona also has a Federal mandate providing for strict preservation of desert tortoises and their habitat. In these four areas preservation of the scenic, cultural, physical, and biological resources are emphasized and human uses are constrained and highly regulated.
Lake Mead National Recreation Area (1,400,000 acres in Arizona and Nevada) and the Mojave National Preserve (1,450,000 acres in California) have different legal mandates that permit a wider range of recreational and commercial activities than the national parks and monuments. However, the National Park Service administrative laws of these units still emphasizes preservation over use, which provides desert tortoises and their habitat with a high degree of direct Federal protection.
National Park units containing Mojave populations of the desert tortoise, which are listed under the Endangered Species Act as threatened, seek management compliance with this act and coordinate programs with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state agencies. The other National Park units also coordinate tortoise programs with other Federal and state agencies. All the park units have varying degrees of inventory and monitoring programs for tortoises funded by National Park Service funds. Research programs on tortoises occurring in the six units are funded and administered in cooperation with the Biological Resources Division of the U.S. Geological Survey.
