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Opinion
May. 14, 2008
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

EDITORIAL: A tortoise tale

Desert critters and the Endangered Species Act

Native Las Vegan Harry Pappas was appointed to the Bureau of Land Management Citizen Advisory Council by then-Rep. Barbara Vucanovich. He later represented the State Rifle & Pistol Association on the Clark County Tortoise Advisory Council.

"They said the (desert) tortoise was threatened, so they had to fence off these huge areas and shut out all the cattle, which means no one is out there shooting the coyotes and the raven or trapping the lions anymore, so of course that wrecked the hunting," Mr. Pappas recalled, back in 2001. "They said anyone who found a tortoise had to turn it in" to Clark County authorities.

"So what happened? They got so overrun with tortoises being turned in that they told us they were going to have to start euthanizing them. I said, 'Hold on a minute, here. Euthanize them? Why don't you just drop them out in the desert?' They said, 'Oh no, they'll fight with the native tortoises that already live out there and they'll kill each other, because all these lands are already at saturation levels.' I said, 'Wait a minute, now: Which is it? How can they be "threatened," or "endangered" ... but now you tell us all these lands are at "saturation levels" for tortoises?' "

Cattle weren't the problem, Mr. Pappas has always insisted. In fact, cattlemen formerly reduced the populations of predators including the coyote and the raven, which benefited tortoise populations.

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    • "But now they say the way to protect the tortoise is to fence off the land and not let the ranchers and the hunters in, when the biggest tortoise populations we ever had were in the '50s and '60s, when you had plenty of ranching, and plenty of hunting, and plenty of predator control," Mr. Pappas insists.

    Needless to say, it's hard to qualify as a federal bureaucrat if you're not willing to keep repeating the same mistakes. It was also back in 2001 that Congress authorized Fort Irwin -- a prime site for desert combat training near Barstow in Southern California's western Mojave desert -- to expand into prime tortoise habitat. As mitigation, the Army agreed to move the tortoises from the expansion area onto unoccupied public lands, an effort that finally began in March 2008.

    But so far, at least 14 of the translocated adult tortoises and 14 resident tortoises in the area have been killed and eaten by coyotes, according to biologists monitoring survival rates of the reptiles, many of which were fitted with radio transmitters.

    Fifteen of 70 baby tortoises collected at the training center as part of the relocation program have also died of various causes, Army officials tell the Los Angeles Times.

    The problem, they say, might be linked to a severe drought that killed off plants and triggered a crash in rodent populations. As a result, coyotes that normally thrive on kangaroo rats and rabbits are turning to gopherus agassizii for sustenance.

    In an effort to prevent further losses, the Army has requested that the predators, described by one military spokesman as a "rogue clan of coyotes," be eradicated by sharpshooters. The hunt, however, has been delayed by bureaucratic red tape.

    The Center for Biological Diversity, the Tucson, Ariz.-based environmental group, meantime announces it plans to file suit later this month against the Army, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management for allegedly violating the federal Endangered Species Act in their big tortoise move.

    William Boarman, an adjunct professor of biology at San Diego State University who's helping direct the translocation project, explains that after the Army decided to expand operations at Fort Irwin, "We were stuck with bad options: move the tortoises or leave them in place, which would have been much worse."

    Said U.S. Geological Survey biologist Kristin Berry: "Coyotes didn't seem to be a problem when we started. The question in the back of all of our minds now is this: How could we have determined that this was going to happen?"

    Oh, please.

    As documented in Vernon Bostic's "Ecology of the Desert Tortoise in Relation to Cattle Grazing," the greatest death loss among Southern Nevada desert tortoises during the severe drought of 1981 occurred in the Crescent Valley Allotment, where cattle had been excluded from grazing.

    "On the adjoining Christmas Tree Pass Allotment, which was grazed (by cattle) all year long, the tortoises were relatively unaffected by the severe drought. ... The reason is simple: Cows provide tortoises with both food and drink," wrote Mr. Bostic.

    Cattle also help the tortoises by eating off the previous year's dried growth from grasses and other desert plants, clearing the way for new growth close enough to the ground to provide turtle fodder.

    The solution? Move the Fort Irwin tortoises not onto parched habitat from which they will only start their long, lumbering walk home, but rather, onto well-maintained cattle grazing lands where local ranchers have improved the springs, putting in windmills, ponds and water tanks.



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    History Buff wrote on May 16, 2008 11:44 PM: From Gardner, Cliff, Edwin R. Riggs, and Newell Bundy. Cattle and Wildlife on the Arizona Strip. 1993. Gardner File Nos. 3-a. and 8-b. www.gardnerfiles.com

    "Desert tortoise not only eat cow pies in dry years, but they eat cow pies in good years too. The two best feed years I remember were 1949 and 1958. Of the two, 1949 was the best. That year the grass and filigree were clear up above your knees everywhere, on the ridges and in the draws.

    "I can tell you right now, livestock haven’t hurt the turtles. It’s the other way around. If grass and other plants aren’t grazed on a regular basis, they become unhealthy. Then the feed’s no good for turtles or anything else. And when it gets hot the turtles will eat the cowpies too. That’s the way they get their moisture.

    "If the turtle people really wanted to protect the turtles, they’d be controlling the predators. Crows and coyotes are awful hard on turtles. Whenever there’s a good year and there’s a lot of new turtles around, the coyotes just go along picking the young ones up one after another. And when coyotes get hungry, on years when there isn’t a lot around for them to eat, they eat the big turtles too. They just turn the turtles over on their backs and pull their back legs off and let the crows have the rest."


    Roger wrote on May 16, 2008 09:04 AM: This is a crap editorial.

    The Review Journal has a classic "Nevada" incompetence...

    And there we have Lawrence Hyde again trying to show that human evolution stops in a smoke filled casino...


    Barstow's finest wrote on May 15, 2008 09:53 AM: Leave the tortoise, move the training, and use the cattle as targets. Problem solved. As for sage grouse Mr. Hyde (not capatalized you idiot), cattle grazing does not provide better habitat for grouse.


    timinator wrote on May 14, 2008 07:00 PM: None of this would even be subject to politicalization if the federal government would simply follow the Constitution.

    The states never delegated any power over "endangered species" to the feds, since all of this should have been private matters handled by land owners, not government entities.

    The massive amount of federally "owned" land is the cause of most of these problems.


    William I. Boarman wrote on May 14, 2008 03:11 PM: Vern Bostsick's assertion that tortoises survive thanks to cow pies contains more cattle excrement than an active feedlot. In two SCIENTIFIC studies, Drs. Harold Avery and Todd Esque observed over 60,000 bites made by wild tortoises where cattle also grazed. Only 338 of them were of cow dung. Furthermore, Dr. Mary Allen, a Smithsonian Institution Animal Nutritionist, fed tortoises nothing but cow poop for 1 month. Most refused to eat, those that did eat acquired virtually no nitrogen.

    Bottonline from these and other studies is there is NO SCIENTIFIC evidence that cattle benefit tortoises. I agree there is little rigorous scientific evidence that they are also detrimental, too. But there is one study, again by Dr. Avery showing that removal of cattle increased the abundance of desert dandelions, an important preferred food item for tortoises and decreased the frequency of crushed tortoise burrows.

    Finally, Bostick did not "document" high tortoise mortality associated with cattle exclusions, rather, he asserted such a relation and used weak and flimsy arguments to support his preconceived notion.

    You suggested that Fort Irwin tortoise should be moved to "well-maintained cattle grazing lands where local ranchers have improved the springs, putting in windmills, ponds and water tanks."

    Oh please...

    Improved springs are in riparian habitats, not used by tortoises and the sides of ponds and water tanks (which are often fed by windmills) are too steep for tortoises to drink from and too dispersed to aid many tortoises.

    Being a newspaper, you are responsible to provide accurate, unbiased information. This editorial is so fraught with inaccuracies and slanted reporting that I suggest, in the name of ethical journalism and properly informing the public, you issue a complete retraction.


    J Moore wrote on May 14, 2008 02:39 PM: Unbelievable example of shoddy journalism yet again. To drag out Harry Pappas who hasnt been involved in any of the planning or development of the conservation options for more than 15 years and to resurrect the already disproven Vern Bostick paper (not peer reviewed) shows that the RJ editorial staff is interested in only one thing - advancing their twisted view of endangered species conservation. The conservation areas identified for tortoise recovery have not been "fenced off from ranchers and hunters". They have been fenced to prevent tortoises from crossing onto busy highways - all entry and exit roads are still present with cattle guards installed. Ranchers were not driven off the range. Economics did that. The conservation program paid them top dollar for those who wanted to sell. Those who didnt went out of business through market forces alone. Get your facts straight RJ Editors - and stop trying to pollute the environment with your twisted "wise-use" logic and biased "fact" picking.


    Lawrence Hyde wrote on May 14, 2008 01:46 PM: The same holds true about the Sage Grouse. Before the wackos started saying cattle were bad for the Sage Grouse and there were hundreds of cattle on the range there were all kinds of Sage Grouse. Then the government and the wackos in there great and wondrous wisdom forced the ranchers off the land and the Sage Grouse began to disappear. I say build a big fence they can't get over or under or through and put all the environmental wackos in it and if by some freak of nature one does get out shoot it.


    PamA wrote on May 14, 2008 11:57 AM: City folk making decisions based on what makes them feel good instead of the best thing to do based on biological facts. If someone or group is ignorant they should not have a say, you can not manage wildlife as a democracy, it needs to be fact based.


    John F wrote on May 14, 2008 08:57 AM: How did the desert tortoise manage to survive before there were cattle grazing on the land?


    rustyrosco wrote on May 14, 2008 06:23 AM: Can't we just relocate The Center for Biological Diversity to a fenced in area?


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