NEWS-JOURNAL (Daytona Beach, Florida) 27 January 07 Immediate end to burying tortoises alive sought (Dinah Voyles Pulver)
Gainesville: A committee debating the future of gopher tortoise protection in Florida wants the state agency in charge of tortoise protection to do one thing immediately: Stop allowing them to be buried alive.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has allowed developers to bury tens of thousands of tortoises in the past decade, but decided last year the animal is now a threatened species.
The agency is working on new rules and increased protections for the tortoises. The proposed management plan will be made public Feb. 16 and the commission is scheduled to discuss the proposal at its June meeting. But most members of a group working with the commission on the proposal voted Friday in Gainesville to ask the agency to stop the burials immediately.
The group, called a stakeholder's panel, includes representatives from a broad variety of interests in Florida, including the agriculture and development industries, as well as wildlife conservation and animal advocacy groups. Of 19 members on the group's steering committee, 15 agreed to ask the agency to stop the burials unless no other possible option exists.
The vote delighted several residents of Volusia and Flagler counties at the meeting.
"I think it's great," said Bob Mish, a former Flagler Beach city commissioner.
Both local counties are working on plans of their own to protect the tortoises.
The commission agreed late last year to allow developers with existing permits to move the tortoises to approved locations rather than burying them. Some developers immediately started working with volunteer groups or environmental consultants to move the tortoises to new locations, but others are still burying the turtles on construction sites.
But even some tortoise advocates don't think the state should allow people to haphazardly move gopher tortoises all over. They worry about disrupting healthy gopher tortoise populations or whether the tortoises would thrive in their new homes.
The new management plan includes guidelines for moving the tortoises, including using the animals to repopulate areas where their numbers have declined.
Several representatives of state and local governments said Friday they're already evaluating public land they manage to determine if they could allow tortoises to be moved onto those tracts.
Ultimately, experts say, increased protection for the tortoises and their habitat will mean protection for hundreds of other species that live in the same habitat and even in the tortoises' burrows, such as indigo snakes, mice and frogs.
Immediate end to burying tortoises alive sought