Plans for one of America’s greatest wildlife refuges, with public facilities for viewing bison, bighorn sheep, and other “big game” in their natural habitat, were revealed today by Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall in an order creating the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Range.
Named in honor of Montana’s great naturalist-artist, the one half million acre wildlife range was formerly called the Fort Peck Game Range. It straddles the 125 mile length of the Fort Peck Reservoir in east central Montana.
Secretary Udall said the Department plans a major acceleration of wildlife management programs on the range, including construction of 13 major waterfowl development areas along the reservoir and river, a wildlife exhibition area near the Fort Peck Dam—a Corps of Army Engineers project—and management enclosures for bison and bighorn sheep. Access roads and trails will be improved and extended. Public areas established by the Corps of Engineers will be supplemented by additional sites for picnicking and camping.
Secretary Udall explained that the range honoring the West’s cowboy artist “will be a splendid memorial to the man whose colorful canvases captured the spirit and color of one of the great eras in the history of the West.
“Dedication of this unique wildlife range to Russell, to server as a perpetual haven for the animals—both wild and domestic—which he loves so well, is a significant step forward in our wildlife rea development program, the Secretary said.
Under terms of the order, administration of domestic livestock grazing on the new wildlife range will continue to be carried out under the provisions of the Taylor Grazing Act.
The Secretary noted that the old Fort Peck Game Range was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936. Since that time it has been under the joint administration of the Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management. The new Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Range embraces the same lands formerly designated the Fort Peck Game Range.
Secretary Udall pointed out that the interesting river “breaks” along the upper reaches of the Missouri River have long be significant for their wildlife. The “breaks” are of glacial origin formed when the waters of a receding ice cap cut across the alluvial soils laid down by ancient seas. These ancient formations are rich in fossil material ranging from mollusks and other marine animals to great sea and land reptiles.
The area once abounded in buffalo, elk, mountain sheep, deer and other big game but under the pressures of over-hunting and the vagaries of nature big game had largely died out in the area by the time the game range was established in 1936.
Today there is a growing population of mule deer and white tail deer. Elk and s small group of Rocky Mountain big horn sheep appears to be making a comeback in fenced pastures.
Parts of the area are also important for the grazing of domestic livestock, the Secretary said, and such use of the lands will continue to the extent it is feasible in the future under terms of the Taylor Grazing Act.
Illustrations of the proposed development of the east and west sections of the Range are attached.
