History
The name Kofa comes from a former area gold mine: the King of Arizona mine (active from 1897 to 1910), with Kofa a contraction of the name.
In 1936, the Arizona Boy Scouts mounted a state-wide campaign to save the Bighorn Sheep, leading to the creation of Kofa. The Scouts first became interested in the sheep through the efforts of Major Frederick Russell Burnham, the noted conservationist who has been called the "Father of Scouting." Burnham observed that fewer than 150 of these sheep lived in the Arizona mountains. He called George F. Miller, then scout executive of the Boy Scout council headquartered in Phoenix, with a plan to save the sheep. Burnham put it this way:
I want you to save this majestic animal, not only because it is in danger of extinction, but of more importance, some day it might provide domestic sheep with a strain to save them from disaster at the hands of a yet unknown virus.
Several other prominent Arizonans joined the movement and a "save the bighorns" poster contest was started in schools throughout the state. Burnham provided prizes and appeared in store windows from one end of Arizona to the other. The contest-winning bighorn emblem was made into neckerchief slides for the 10,000 Boy Scouts, and talks and dramatizations were given at school assemblies and on radio. The National Wildlife Federation, the Izaak Walton League, and the Audubon Society joined the effort.
On January 18, 1939, over 1.5 million acres (6,100 km2) were set aside at Kofa and at Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge combined, and a civilian conservation corps side camp was set up to develop high mountain waterholes for the sheep. On April 2, 1939, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge was officially opened; Burnham gave the dedication speech. The Desert Bighorn Sheep is now the official mascot for the Arizona Boy Scouts, and the number of sheep in these parks have increased substantially. The refuge was originally administered jointly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. On February 5, 1975, Kofa was transferred exclusively to the Bureau of Land Management. However, following congressional action, this decision made by the Department of the Interior was reversed and complete authority was returned to the Department of Fish and Wildlife Services.
Read more about this topic: Kofa National Wildlife Refuge
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