Army Rethinks Tortoise Relocation
October 13th, 2008 Posted by Larry Hogue in Endangered Species, desert wildlifeWhile the U.S. Marine Corps has announced plans to expand its 29 Palms base, the Army’s Ft. Irwin expansion efforts faced some difficulty when the Army announced on Friday that it would suspend its much-criticized desert tortoise relocation program. As biologists and conservationists had predicted, the tortoises faced increased predation by coyotes, as well as exposure to disease, that they hadn’t faced in their home territory. The Army claimed the suspension comes in direct response to the loss of relocated tortoises, while the Center for Biological Diversity claims the suspension is a result of its own lawsuit (in conjunction with Desert Survivors) against the relocation effort.
During the relocation program, about 670 tortoises were airlifted to a new home in a drought-stricken portion of the Mojave Desert, and around 90 tortoises, both resident and relocated, have died, mostly by falling prey to coyotes. While the occurrence of coyote predation has been exacerbated by drought conditions that reduced the predator’s other food sources, the relocated tortoises may have also become “slowly moving ducks” as they sought to establish their own territory in an area already occupied by an existing tortoise population.
For now the remaining tortoises at the Ft. Irwin site will be allowed to remain where they are. Read more in the Los Angeles Times and on the Center for Biological Diversity’s website.
2 Responses to “Army Rethinks Tortoise Relocation”
By Kevin on Oct 14, 2008
The first really large tortoise translocation attempt occurred in the late 1990’s in Clark County, Nevada. Most of the relocated tortoises were displaced by the out of control urban sprawl of the Las Vegas Valley. The whole thing was conducted by UNR, Reno with the blessing of the Fish and Wildlife Service. The people behind it called it a massive success. We checked out the area (between Primm and Jean, Nevada) for the following three years and found shell after shell. I never got the exact number of tortoises that were released, but it was reported to be 10 to 20 thousand in what was close to a 10,000 acre area. Tortoises have home ranges and can not just be crowded together. They will get stressed and be forced to travel great distance to find a suitable habitat. There was also great predation of the animals. It is ironic that the whole area is now being looked at for an airport, solar and wind farms and powerlines.
I guarantee that this will be the mitigation effort of all renewable energy projects in tortoise habitat and it will sadly be promoted by not all, but many of the more well known biologists in the field. It really creates a lot of good paying jobs for them. They get close to $60.00 an hour plus good travel pay. In this respect, the Endangered Species Act has been grossly compromised by simply allowing all development to happen simply because they can move all tortoises. It never works that way, though. The ESA should be there to protect habitats and stop developments. Biologists can not just move tortoises to places where there are native tortoises without messing up the carrying capacity of an area. Plus, hatchling and juvenile tortoises are rarely found and those animals are more vulnerable to this kind of movement. In my experience as a field biologist, the translocation projects I am familiar with all have had at the best, a 50 percent survival rate. Those were the good ones. That number also only relates to the ones that were moved. No one will ever know how many juveniles were killed.
Anyway, I’m glad that they stopped this for now at the Ft. Irwin disaster. Ft. Irwin is a dinosaur. We never needed it. The Army needs to get out of the desert.
By Larry Hogue on Oct 14, 2008
Hi Kevin,
Thanks for the comment and the great info!