Acknowledgments Acknowledgments Many people have contributed to this plan over many detailed and technical requirements of sub- the last seven years. Several key staff positions, missions to the Service, the Environmental Protec- including mine, have been filled by different people tion Agency, and the Federal Register. Jon during the planning period. Tom Palmer and Neil Kauffeld’s and Nita Fuller’s leadership and over- Vincent of the Refuge staff are notable for having sight were invaluable. We benefited from close col- been active in the planning for the entire extent. laboration and cooperation with staff of the Illinois Tom and Neil kept the details straight and the rest Department of Natural Resources. Their staff par- of us on track throughout. Mike Brown joined the ticipated from the early days of scoping through staff in the midst of the process and contributed new reviews and re-writes. We appreciate their persis- insights, analysis, and enthusiasm that kept us mov- tence, professional expertise, and commitment to ing forward. Beth Kerley and John Magera pro- our natural resources. Finally, we value the tremen- vided valuable input on the industrial and public use dous involvement of citizens throughout the plan- aspects of the plan. Although this is a refuge plan, ning process. We heard from visitors to the Refuge we received notable support from our regional office and from people who care about the Refuge without planning staff. John Schomaker provided excep- ever having visited. Their input demonstrated a tional service coordinating among the multiple level of caring and thought that constantly interests and requirements within the Service. Jane reminded us of our responsibility as land stewards. Hodgins edited and prepared the many documents We sincerely thank the individuals and groups that that were a part of the process. Jane also kept were involved and contributed ideas to make this a everyone informed by keeping the planning website better plan. current and packed with information. Her touch is most visible to you, the reader, and we appreciate Dan Frisk her efforts. Jane Lardy-Nelson handled well the Refuge Manager November 2006 Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge / Comprehensive Conservation Plan ii Preface Preface This Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) emerged from a 7-year planning process that included the preparation of Draft and Final Envi- ronmental Impact Statements (EIS). In theory we should have been able simply to extract portions of the Final Environmental Impact Statement and assemble them into this stand-alone plan. In reality we had to introduce minor edits to the content of the EIS to make a concise, accurate, and up-to-date CCP that reads well. None of the edits introduce new content. “Chapter 4: Management Direction” consists of rearranged selections from Chapter 2 and Appendix A of the EIS. The rearrangement was needed because of cross-references in the alterna- tives and features that were common to all alterna- tives in the EIS. We have also changed verb tenses from the conditional form “would” in the EIS to a definitive “will” in the plan. New U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service policies for the National Wildlife Refuge System were issued in June 2006, late in the planning process. These new policies set forth new goals for the System, which we have substituted for earlier goals in the background description in the first chapter. In order to make the CCP a more com- plete reference document, we have included the Record of Decision and the memo that transmitted the Service’s Programmatic Biological Opinion as appendices. We have also included a map that dis- plays the Refuge’s approved boundary, which was established during the planning process and approved by the Regional Director who has author- ity to approve expansions that are less than 10 per- cent of the Refuge area. Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge / Comprehensive Conservation Plan iii Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan Table of Contents Acknowledgments ...........................................................................................................................................ii Preface ............................................................................................................................................................. iii Chapter 1: Introduction and Background ................................................................................................... 1 National Wildlife Refuge System Mission, Goals and Principles ...................................................................... 1 Mission of the National Wildlife Refuge System ........................................................................................ 1 Goals of the National Wildlife Refuge System ........................................................................................... 3 Guiding Principles of the National Wildlife Refuge System ....................................................................... 4 Brief History of Refuge Establishment, Acquisition, and Management .............................................................4 Recent Refuge Management Activities ....................................................................................................... 5 Wildlife and Fish Habitat ...................................................................................................................... 5 Agriculture ............................................................................................................................................ 5 Recreation ............................................................................................................................................. 6 Industry ................................................................................................................................................. 6 Wilderness ............................................................................................................................................ 6 Contaminants ........................................................................................................................................ 6 Archaeological and Cultural Resources ............................................................................................... 6 Refuge Purposes .................................................................................................................................................. 6 Refuge Vision Statement .................................................................................................................................... 7 Refuge Goals ....................................................................................................................................................... 7 Wildlife Conservation Goals ........................................................................................................................ 7 Recreation/Public Use Goals ...................................................................................................................... 7 Agricultural Goal .......................................................................................................................................... 8 Industrial Goal .............................................................................................................................................. 8 Wilderness Goal ........................................................................................................................................... 8 Protection Goal ............................................................................................................................................. 8 Outreach Goal .............................................................................................................................................. 8 Ecosystem Goals ................................................................................................................................................. 8 Upper Mississippi River/Tallgrass Prairie Ecosystem ................................................................................. 8 Goals and Objectives for Other Landscape Level Plans .............................................................................. 9 Migratory Bird Conservation Initiatives ............................................................................................... 9 Region 3 Fish and Wildlife Resource Conservation Priorities (January 2002) ................................... 11 Legal and Policy Guidelines .............................................................................................................................. 11 Chapter 2: The Planning Process ............................................................................................................... 12 Overview of the Planning Process ..................................................................................................................... 12 Planning Issues ................................................................................................................................................. 13 Issue 1: Recreation ..................................................................................................................................... 13 Issue 2: Wildlife Conservation ................................................................................................................... 13 Issue