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CITRUS COUNTY CHRONICLE (Lecanto, Florida) 08 January 05 Advocate: Don't bury tortoises (Terry Witt)
A wildlife advocate is fighting to prevent 50 gopher tortoises from being buried alive in a future Lecanto residential community, but the animals may be doomed despite Jim Kantor's efforts.
Kantor filed an appeal challenging a state permit that grants property owner Richard Stafford the legal right to bury the tortoises alive in their burrows if he chooses.
Stafford owns 83 acres of undeveloped property next to Crystal Oaks and Connell Heights in Lecanto. He plans to develop the property into Westchase subdivision. An estimated 92 tortoises are living on the property. Forty-nine animals live in phase one.
More importantly, four of the tortoises in phase one are sick with an upper respiratory tract disease. To contain the disease, state law prohibits Stafford from relocating the infected tortoises to an offsite location. The same rule applies to the other 88 tortoises living on the same piece of property, regardless of whether they have the illness.
Under the law, developers can purchase a permit to entomb the animals, or they can relocate them on the same piece of property.
The law is intended to prevent spread of the disease.
The 49 animals in phase one would be the first to die. The permit fee for Stafford is $68,000.
"Once they are sealed and entombed, they slowly die," Kantor said.
One issue raised by Kantor in his appeal to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is that Stafford's application for the permit contains a map of Westchase with a much larger version of phase one than that approved by the county. He wants to know why.
Stafford's environmental consultant, Mike Czerwinski, said the phase one pictured in the application is larger because it includes all the areas where construction activity might impact tortoise habitat when developed. But he said it doesn't change the subdivision map approved by the county commission.
Kantor also complains he wasn't given the right documentation to challenge the permit until it was almost too late to file the paperwork.
Tortoises are ground-dwelling turtles. They burrow in the ground and live at the end of the long tunnels. Their favorite habitat in Florida are sand hills, which also happens to the area where residential development is heaviest in Citrus County and many other areas of the state. The state's rapid growth has caused tortoise populations to decline and they are listed as a species of special concern.
Kantor said his goal is to convince the state that Stafford should exercise the most humane option at his disposal, to relocate the tortoises to future phases of the Westchase development. He said it's the right thing to do for the tortoises, and he said the other phases won't be developed for years.
But Stafford's daughter, Tracy Destin, a vice president in her father's company, CDR Investments, said Kantor's plan makes no sense in the long run. She said if the tortoises are relocated to phase two, they would have no place to go when phase three was developed because the animals are considered an infected population.
Stafford originally volunteered to relocate the tortoises. The relocation would have cost him $15,000 less than the permit. But when four tortoises tested positive for the respiratory disease on the Westchase property, Destin said her father was forced by state law to change his plans and use the more expensive permit method.
"The rules govern what needs to be done," Czerwinski said. "This is an unfortunate thing for Mr. Stafford. It's costing him $15,000 more to use the (permit)."
Don't bury tortoises

If they are going to be killed, seems like the government could step in and give special permits to allow people like us to take these particular tortoises into captivity. If they aren't allowed to be released into the wild, a captive life is better than dying. Just my thoughts,

~Kyle

i see it as a smaller sin to keep these animals in captivity than to allow them to be buried alive. it's so ironic that a guy with money is legally endowed to kil thme liek that, whereas if i went there to save just one, i'd be in deep legal crap.

very sad story.

nm

i sent the following to any relevant email address i could find at zoo atlanta's website. here's hoping:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To Whom it May Concern:

Hello. I have a request, and I'm really not sure who to go to with this.

I came across this story yesterday as a link at a tortoise care forum I frequent:

http://www.chronicleonline.com/articles/2005/01/08/news/news02.txt

I find it heartbreaking that these animals will be buried alive simply because a few of them suffer from an upper respiratory infection. My own pet, a red-footed tortoise, was quickly cured of such an infection with an injection of antibiotics. I've read that such infections can complicate and lead to pneumonia, and I understand that the law stands to prevent the spread of disease to an already endangered population.

What I don't understand, though, is the irony in how somebody can just come up with a sum of money and be given legal rights to condemn these poor, endangered tortoises, while someone like myself would be unable to rescue any of them. I would, if only I could, but the law, of course, forbids it. I love animals, reptiles in particular, and I have a special soft spot for tortoises, I admit, but it seems so terribly unfair.

I suppose that this is my point, and my plea:

Zoo Atlanta has proven itself time and again to the world that it is committed to the care and preservation of endangered wildlife. Can the Zoo find it in its collective heart to make a place for at least some of these endangered tortoises who have been doomed to be buried alive because of the spread of humankind? Surely any upper respiratory infections they may suffer from would be treatable, and perhaps they may even be able to thrive and achieve reproductive success in your care while providing the public with a chance to see these rare tortoises in person. I'm asking on behalf of those who have no power to do so -- please give at least a few of these little guys and girls a chance at a full life.

I thank you for your time in reading this, and I sincerely hope that this has not fallen on death ears.