PALM BEACH POST (Florida) 09 December 09 At least 13 state-protected gopher tortoises in Wabasso killed for food (Elliott Jones)
Wabasso: At least 13 gopher tortoises were killed for food in the area of the county’s 111-acre Wabasso Scrub Conservation Area on County Road 510, county conservation lands manager Beth Powell said Wednesday.
Late Tuesday the shells of the state-protected species were found scattered on a one-fourth-acre vacant lot, on 61st Drive, bordering the conservation area.
The shells showed evidence of either being hit or shot. “They are eating them,” Powell said. Nothing remained except the shells. “They pried the shells open and cleaned them out,” she said.
An environmental consultant for the Habitat for Humanity found them about 4 p.m. Tuesday while checking the lot that is being considered for donation to the county.
If not for the consultant checking the land, the shells may have gone undiscovered, officials said.
The Humane Society of Vero Beach and Indian River County took the empty shells and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is investigating, she said.
Powell said all the shells were from adults and some were at least 20 years old.
Most were killed in the past six months, but a few may date back a year.
Gopher tortoises are a state-protected species and it is illegal to kill or molest them.
Powell will be checking the conservation area for more shells and to see how many tortoises are still there.
In the past six months, the county began using the conservation area for relocating gopher tortoises displaced by development. Powell has no evidence that any relocated tortoises were killed, she said.
Counts of the number of tortoises in the conservation area have been done only in the northwest one-third where about 25 of the animals are believed to be living in 50 burrows.
“This is the worst case of gopher tortoise poaching that I have ever found in 10 years of working as the conservation lands manager for Indian River County,” Powell said. “It is extremely disheartening. The impact of this is terrible.”
At least 13 state-protected gopher tortoises in Wabasso killed for food