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NAPLES NEWS DAILY (Florida) 04 October 06 Developer pays tortoise protection fine (Eric Staats)
A developer has paid a $60,000 fine to settle violations of Collier County’s gopher tortoise protection rules at a golf course community being built in East Naples.
Wisconsin-based VK Development reported itself to county code enforcement in early March after workers at Treviso Bay along U.S. 41 East cleared 3½ acres of gopher tortoise habitat before crews could move gopher tortoises out of harm’s way as required by county rules.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which issued a permit for the gopher tortoise destruction at Treviso Bay, listed the crawling creatures as a threatened species in June, a step above their previous ranking as merely a species of special concern. A statewide protection plan is due by June 2007.
Treviso Bay is planned for 1,200 homes and an 18-hole Tournament Players Club golf course on the northern edge of Rookery Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.
VK Development wrote the $60,000 check to the Friends of Rookery Bay on Sept. 21, and county environmental code compliance officer Susan O’Farrell closed the case the same day.
“They did everything we asked them to do,” O’Farrell said Tuesday.
The money is to be used to restore gopher tortoise habitat at the Rookery Bay reserve, identify burrows and research gopher tortoise populations and their health, according to an agreement among the county, VK Development and the Friends of Rookery Bay.
Rookery Bay and VK Development caused a stir in 2003 when the reserve worked out a deal with the developer to get $250 for every unit sold at Treviso Bay and $250 for every resale into perpetuity. That could raise $300,000 from initial sales.
The county’s calculation of the gopher tortoise fine against VK Development is a mix of simple arithmetic and complicated guessing.
Studies identified 19 gopher tortoise burrows at the Treviso Bay site, which scientists estimate could be home to 13 tortoises, according to county figures.
After the clearing, efforts to excavate gopher tortoises from their burrows resulted in two tortoises being killed and four eggs being destroyed, according to county figures.
VK Development agreed to stop work around the gopher tortoise burrows for five months to see whether tortoises would emerge and then could be relocated. That resulted in three tortoises and two eggs being moved to a preserve at the development, according to county figures.
The county calculated the $60,000 fine by taking the original 13 tortoises, adding the two killed tortoises and then subtracting the three living tortoises to come up with 12 tortoises. The county charged $5,000 per tortoise.
The eggs ended up being a wash because the county assumed that only two of the four destroyed eggs would have been viable and then gave the developer credit for moving two other eggs to the preserve, O’Farrell said.
Rookery Bay resource management coordinator Keith Laakkonen said Tuesday the $60,000 fine was welcome, but he lamented that gopher tortoise biology makes the animals hard to replace. They are long-lived and take a long time to reach sexual maturity, he said.
“That’s hard to totally get past,” he said.
Conservancy of Southwest Florida government relations manager Nicole Ryan said the Treviso Bay episode should prompt Collier County to do more to ensure that clearing does not take place before gopher tortoises are moved.
“Maybe there should be more stringent policies at the county so there are no lapses in the process,” she said.
VK Development principal Sanjay Kuttemperoor said Tuesday that he doesn’t know why crews started clearing prematurely.
He said the company had a contract with a gopher tortoise relocation company ready to go and, after the clearing, hired gopher tortoise expert Ray Ashton from northern Florida to repair the damage.
“The important thing is we reported it and worked with the county to correct it,” he said.
Developer pays tortoise protection fine

>>The county calculated the $60,000 fine by taking the original 13 tortoises, adding the two killed tortoises and then subtracting the three living tortoises to come up with 12 tortoises. The county charged $5,000 per tortoise.

So for $5,000, I can kill a gopher tortoise, but I can't keep it alive in my yard? Awesome.

Somebody needs to scratch their heads and come up with a salvage permit. Fish-n-Wildlife could log every tortoise coming off a to-be-developed property, and set up a registry in order to track the new captives. Use them for stud services in restoration projects.

Shoot, even let the owners captive-breed them for sale--just subsidize the price so the breeders can't sell them for more than say, $50 apiece. The govt knows the guys receiving the subsidies are legit, since they'd crosscheck their records with the issued salvage permits, and would-be poachers wouldn't make enough on each animal to make it worth the risk of stiffer penalties (the purchase price should be low enough to disincentivize(?) folks from going out and catching their own).

It's not a perfect plan, just something I thought up recently (actually for a different species where it would be a little easier to set up).
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Chris McMartin
www.mcmartinville.com
I'm Not a Herpetologist, but I Play One on the Internet

Chris,
It could also fall into the rehab/ relocation arena of FL state law, there you have to have permits and a G-man inspects the holding areas.
By the way, your site is great! And your tag line falls just below the paint chips tag line. If you ever make it over to the Cape Fear River, email me and I will show you where we keep the herps. The skink was an escapee...
Blue