Marines create a haven for threatened desert tortoise

About 500 hatchlings are being protected from predators at a 5-acre site on the Twentynine Palms base under a partnership between the Marine Corps and UCLA.

November 18, 2012|By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times

-20121118/600

A surveillance drone is buzzing overhead. The booming of heavy artillery can be heard in the distance.

On the desert floor, Thelma and Louise, the grand dames of the desert tortoise population at the massive Marine base at Twentynine Palms, are blissfully munching on their breakfast of mixed fruit and vegetable slices.

At one time the two were the pets of a Marine general. But he deployed to Iraq, and there is no room in a combat rucksack for tortoises, despite their status as the state reptile of California.

Now Thelma and Louise are assigned to help base officials explain to schoolchildren the ambitious, albeit slow-moving, plan to reverse the decline of the desert tortoise on the base by hatching baby tortoises in a protected facility away from natural predators like ravens and lizards and man-made ones like tanks and Humvees.

So far, about 500 hatchlings live in the 5-acre Desert Tortoise Head-Start Facility, protected from predators by wire and netting. The program began in 2006 under a partnership between the Marine Corps and UCLA, with a budget of about $100,000 a year from the Department of Defense.

More:
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/18/local/la-me-adv-marines-tortoise-20121120

[center]

translocated tortoise with radiotransmitter





[/center]

Humans are capable of, and exhibit such horrible behavior on a regular basis that we need to be reminded that some are capable of acts of kindness and charity.

29 Palms is a live fire joint arms exercise that we go to a few times during our career. One of the VERY first things that happen when we get there is have a briefing. One of the items is about just this very topic. It is, under no circumstance, that any Desert Tortoise be handled or molested. I have seen a full live fire movement go cold because somebody spotted one. Since we aren't allowed to handle them, they have to bring in certain people to come and get them.

the tortoise panics and urinates, trying to lighten his body to enable him to escape. Unfortunately, if this occurs in high heat, the tortoise dies shortly thereafter. At Ft. Irwin, about 50 miles away, about 20% of the maneuver area as well as the road leading to the base is blocked off with a 1-foot high "tortoise fence". The fence keeps the tortoises from getting run over. As with 29 Palms MCB, if a tortoise is spotted, the units must maneuver away from the critter.