Reptile & Amphibian Forums

PALM BEACH POST (Florida) 19 December 05 Slow deaths of 5 tortoises expose horrifying practice - The state allows the Wal-Mart store's developers to bury the tortoises alive. (Robert P. King)
North Palm Beach County shoppers looking for low-priced pants, patio furniture and DVD players will owe an awesome debt to five dead reptiles.
The five gopher tortoises had the bad luck to dig their burrows on the site of a future Wal-Mart in Lake Park. And they paid a ghastly price: The state allowed the store's developers to bury the tortoises alive earlier this year, leaving them to starve or gasp for air for the weeks or months it would take them to die. Wal-Mart paid $11,409 for the permit.
As many as 74,000 gopher tortoises have met the same doom in the past 14 years, with the blessing of Florida's wildlife regulators.
But this time, the fate of the Lake Park Five inspired an outcry that Cynthia Pandolfe heard more than 4,800 miles away.
"I was outraged and shocked that they can do this," said Pandolfe, a Honolulu resident who was one of many people to receive an e-mail alert from the Humane Society of the United States denouncing the actions of Wal-Mart and the state. "They're basically selling their souls."
The Humane Society's Nov. 23 alert, inspired by a tip from a resident, drew hundreds of similar responses, the group estimates. It came too late to save those five tortoises, but it cast a nationwide light on a practice that disturbs even some who participate in it.
"People are upset, even in our agency, at the individual losses of tortoises," said Kim Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which issues the burial permits. "Many of our staff have devoted their lives to gopher tortoise conservation."
Wal-Mart also doesn't relish the idea of entombing tortoises, spokesman Eric Brewer said. He said the company considers burial a last resort and is interested in working on alternatives.
"This will come up again, and we want to do a better job than what's been happening," he said.
Wal-Mart is far from alone. Gopher tortoises have suffered from countless housing subdivisions, shopping centers, roads and other developments throughout Florida. They've also posed obstacles to some projects, including Florida Atlantic University's long-troubled effort to build a football stadium in Boca Raton.
These are the main rubs: The tortoises thrive in the same high, sandy ground that developers prize. And the most popular alternative to burial — moving the tortoises someplace else — has serious drawbacks.
Some gopher tortoises suffer from a contagious respiratory disease, so the state won't allow landowners to move them off-site. And some relocation attempts do more harm than good: Dumped onto unsuitable habitat, the tortoises try to flee, only to fall victim to cars or dogs.
Landowners also can move the tortoises to a safe spot within the same tract as their original burrow. But eventually that can leave tortoises scattered in isolated spots throughout a subdivision, unable to reach each other to breed.
"It's kind of a feel-good permit," wildlife commission biologist Ricardo Zambrano said of that last option. "It has very little biological value for the tortoises."
None of the alternatives avoids the ecological loss that occurs whenever tortoises' habitats are destroyed. Their burrows provide shelter to more than 360 animal species, according to the not-for-profit Gopher Tortoise Council — including owls, armadillos, snakes, the gopher frog, the gopher cricket, and a species of mouse than cannot exist without the tortoises' tunnels.
After being around for 60 million years, the tortoise has lost as much as 80 percent of its population during the past century as its habitat has dwindled, state scientists estimate.
The burial program offers one remedy for the habitat problem: The permits have brought in $47 million worth of fees since 1991, allowing the wildlife commission to buy and manage 22,000 acres of gopher tortoise habitat statewide. "That land is protected forever," Jamerson said.
Still, the price that the buried tortoises pay strikes the Humane Society and other critics as — well, inhumane.
"To think they're just entombed — would you do that to your cat or your dog or your rabbit?" asked Laurie Macdonald, an activist for the group Defenders of Wildlife, who serves on a state panel examining gopher tortoise policies. "It's pretty cold-blooded what we're doing."
Jamerson said the commission's staff and the tortoise panel are examining ways to lessen future tortoise killings, perhaps by increasing efforts to put displaced tortoises on public land. The staff also is proposing to declare the gopher tortoise a threatened species — possibly affording greater protection than its current status, "species of special concern."
A change can't come soon enough for people such as Pandolfe, who said Florida should emulate the philosophy she sees in Hawaii.
"Animals are special here," she said. "We don't just go killing animals for money."
Slow deaths of 5 tortoises expose horrifying practice

ORLANDO SENTINEL (Florida) 20 December 05 County expected to move tortoises - A plan for the protected species is needed before work starts on the South Clermont Connector. (Nin-Hai Tseng)
Tavares: Gopher tortoises found on the site of the new South Clermont Connector likely would be relocated before work starts on the road next year, the county's engineering director said Monday.
Although county officials say moving the creatures would protect them, some conservation groups question how safe the tortoises would be. The reptiles, protected in Florida as species of special concern, would be relocated along the side of the future four-lane road, said Fred Schneider, the engineering director.
The South Clermont Connector will run for about two miles from Lakeshore Drive south of Lake Minnehaha to Citrus Tower Boulevard on the east side of U.S. Highway 27. Construction of the estimated $6 million project is expected to begin in March and could take up to10 months. Motorists on the road will have access to U.S. 27.
The state prohibits killing or moving gopher tortoises without a permit. State officials offer various ways to deal with the reptiles, which generally include moving the creatures or leaving them to the uncertainty of bulldozers.
"This will put them out of harm's way," Schneider said. "We think this will be a better solution because we're still protecting gopher tortoises and contributing to the mitigation bank," a trust fund dedicated to buying conservation parks.
Today, county commissioners are expected to consider spending $68,913 on an "incidental take" permit, which would allow the county to destroy the tortoises, but also allows relocation of the reptiles on the development site. The county could have applied for a "relocation" permit, which requires testing the tortoises for disease before relocating them to a dedicated conservation area.
The commission meeting starts at 9 a.m. at the Lake County Administration Building in Tavares.
Schneider said it is unlikely that a developer in the area would set aside land for the tortoises, but the county will make an effort to relocate them on the side of the new road.
It's unknown how many tortoises live in the 79-acre habitat between Lakeshore Drive and U.S. 27. The county plans to search the area and remove any reptiles found.
"They'll go crawl off into the adjacent properties," said Schneider, who said a temporary fence will help keep the creatures safe during construction of the connector.
However, new developments are expected to be built along the road.
"If you're moving them to the side of the road, that's just like killing them," said Jerry Bohmann, president of the Oklawaha Valley Audubon Society, which has its headquarters in Eustis.
Bohmann suggested the county find a safer place.
Joan Berish, Florida representative of the Gopher Tortoise Council, said it's inevitable that some tortoises will not survive.
"Some are going to get run over by cars, obviously," said Berish, who also is a research biologist for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "But at least the county seems to be giving some of them a chance."
County expected to move tortoises

stories like these are so heartbreaking. at least these guys aren't getting bulldozed, but i agree that it's still a death sentence. i suppose that given a choice i'd rather die instantly from getting hit by a car than slowly waste away from being entombed.