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May 7, 2004
Trout Canyon possible home for desert tortoises
By MARK WAITE Forest Service biologist Michael Burroughs said since the Jean location was established in 1996, over 4,000 endangered desert tortoises have been transported to that 34 square-mile site. All of them were collected under the Clark County habitat conservation plan, he said. Burroughs confirmed Trout Canyon was being eyed up as a possible site for desert tortoises, as well as northern El Dorado Valley near Boulder City, the Desert National Wildlife Refuge north of Las Vegas and U.S. Highway 95 near Mercury. "There was an environmental document done when that site was established. I think it specified translocation may occur there for a specific period of time and a limited number of animals could be located there," Burroughs said. "There was sort of a sunset clause put in the document. We have reached that and are reevaluating that translocation site and any others that might be able to serve that purpose." He said the Trout Canyon site isn't a preferred alternative. "Actually the preferred alternative would be to continue to trans-locate at the existing site. But we have to consider other sites in case some level was reached at the existing site and we can't relocate," he added. There isn't a concern over the density of tortoises at the Jean site, but the fish and wildlife service is undertaking steps to evaluate other sites, Burroughs said. The Jean site was permitted for 30 years, he said. Desert tortoises eat native grasses and annual forbs. The current drought has reduced some of the forage, Burroughs said. "We monitor it yearly and we will continue to monitor it on a yearly basis and if we start to see mortality that is occurring to us that's when we may consider additional sites," Burroughs said. The Forest Service would prefer some place with tens of square miles of area, which is fairly secure and somewhat isolated, with physical features to limit disbursal of the animals. Burroughs said some fencing would be built. Burroughs said landowners already receive incidental take permits; they wouldn't have to worry about tortoises migrating to their area. "There wouldn't be any structures, it would just be a site where animals would be taken to and released. Before they were released there would have to be some barriers in place, in particular fencing," Burroughs said. Desert tortoises found in the wild that are relocated to the tortoise sanctuary are first inspected at a laboratory off Blue Diamond Road, to be sure they don't have respiratory diseases that have resulted in the deaths of some of the animals. "The animals that would be trans-located are screened the best we can for the disease and we do a blood analysis to determine if they've been exposed to the disease," Burroughs said. In a related matter, Burroughs said the Forest Service is fencing roads and highways traversing through desert tortoise habitat. The fish and wildlife service is looking at fencing parts of U.S. Highway 95 in Nye County up to the northern limit of desert tortoise habitat in Beatty and along U.S. Highway 93 in Lincoln County as far north as Pahranagat Valley. Burroughs said there are hundreds of tortoises dropped off at the Jean site every year. The normal procedure is for anyone who finds a desert tortoise to call the Desert Tortoise Hotline at 1-702-593-9027 to have the animal picked up. "Unfortunately a lot of them come from unknown sources. The ones that have been trans-located to the Jean site have come with the urban interface of Las Vegas and the desert. They're just sort of found, we don't know if they escaped from someone's yard or found in the desert," Burroughs said. |
