Large Tract Proposed as Reserve for Bighorns

A hundred-mile swath of mountainous Southern California desert, from the Mexican border to Palm Springs, would be subject to new land-use restrictions under a federal proposal to protect the endangered peninsular bighorn sheep.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed Wednesday to designate 1,370 square miles in three counties as critical protected habitat for the bighorns, whose numbers in the region have dropped to about 335 from about 1,000 in the early 1970s.

Agency officials believe that establishing the critical zone and managing the rugged region more carefully could help the bighorn population double and reach a sustainable level.

“It’s not too late,” said Pete Sorenson, a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist.

Before it can be adopted, the habitat plan is likely to be modified after the agency holds public hearings later this month and develops a report on its economic impacts later this year.

The plan faces opposition because it includes private land that falls within fast-growing cities of the Coachella Valley such as Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage, Palm Desert and La Quinta.

New federal restrictions could halt development in the areas covered by the plan, said Ed Kibbey, executive director of the Building Industry Assn.’s Desert Chapter.

The agency’s plan, Kibbey said, includes areas long abandoned by the bighorns and would also curtail hiking, off-road vehicles and other recreational activities around the Coachella Valley.

“There is absolutely no question that steps should be taken to protect these sheep . . . but that needs to be done in a realistic, scientifically based way,” he said.

Fish and Wildlife officials said hiking and other recreation would be more limited by the plan, but not prohibited.

Other criticism centers on the size of the proposed critical area, which runs from near the small San Diego County town of Jacumba, on the U.S.-Mexico border, to the San Jacinto Mountains of Riverside County and includes the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in Imperial and San Diego counties.

About 150,000 acres, or 234 square miles, of the area, is private land. About 20,500 acres is controlled by three Indian tribes and the rest is under federal, state or local jurisdiction.

“This is a lot of land for a small, small group of sheep,” said Rusty Payne, a spokesman for Rep. Mary Bono (R-Palm Springs).

Bono is skeptical of the plan but has not yet taken a position on it, Payne said.

Members of the environmental groups whose lawsuit forced creation of the plan said the private land in the Coachella Valley cities must be included because the bighorns have historically given birth and raised their young there.

The Center for Biological Diversity, based in Tucson, and Desert Survivors, based in Oakland, sued the Fish and Wildlife Service for not adequately protecting the bighorns and agreed in September to a settlement.

As part of that settlement, the Wildlife Service is required to complete the plan by Dec. 31. The precise effects on private landholders won’t be known until the economic impact report is completed. The final document “could look substantially different,” said agency spokeswoman Jane Hendron.

Further protection for the bighorns are welcomed by many who live in the region, said Eris Eckhart, the honorary mayor of the town of Borrego Springs, which would be almost entirely surrounded by land in the habitat zone.

“Tourism is our only industry, so the sheep are very important to us,” Eckhart said. “It’s part of our heritage here.”