Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Dunno how long this will last but will try to keep you all posted. From local paper today. More to follow I'm sure.

Regards,
Jeff Nichols
Snake sightings keep housing development on hold

Jeff, thanks for the article. How does money from a developer help the gopher tortoise population present on their land?

Steve,

I'm not exactly sure in this particular situation. My general impression is discovery of Gophers or Easterns just adds to the hoops necessary for the developer to jump through or pay off. This is evidenced IMHO by a number of things. Among them:

- "Surprise" discoveries on land to be developed (if these issues were prohibitive to development, surveys would be done prior to purchase).
- Developers attitude that all we gotta do is stroke a check or make a token sacrifice (10 acres and a kiosk is pathetic if accepted) we'll be allowed to continue.

Until a site actually gets shut down by these discoveries, development will continue and habitat will continue to go away. Developers and enforcement organizations will both have defendable positions and populations of Gophers and Easterns will suffer additional losses.

Regards,
Jeff

In the long run, the land will probably still get developed, but...at least they had to pay some serious jack for the toroise habitat and maybe indigos will get some exposure from this.