The Tortured Tortoise

The desert tortoise may not be one of the more glamorous or romantic of nature’s creatures, but it is an important inhabitant of the vast arid regions of the Southwest. The tortoise is the California state reptile, is designated by the state as a protected species and is proposed for the national list of threatened or endangered species.

None of these protective devices have offered much protection for the tortoise, however. The tortoise population is declining in the California desert in alarming numbers, as staff writer Larry Stammer reported in last Tuesday’s editions of The Times. The decimation is particularly distressing in portions of the Desert Tortoise Natural Area established in 1980. “We’re losing the species in the wild. In the Southwest the tortoise is in trouble,” daid Glenn Stewart, a zoology professor at Cal Poly Pomona who is the chairman of the Desert Tortoise Council.

Some help is on the way. The Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee has initiated a campaign to raise $2.5 million to acquire 9.5 square miles of privately owned property within the natural area. The federal Bureau of Land Management, which now administers much of the California desert region, has budgeted another $500,000. The California Department of Fish and Game also has joined in the land-acquisition campaign.

None of these actions are likely to stop the senseless decimation of the tortoise population, which has plummeted 90% in the last 50 years and has declined as much as 50% in the past decade. Many of the tortoises have been shot. Others are taken by poachers or run over by off-road vehicles. In some areas the tortoise population is suffering because livestock compete for the grass on which tortoises subsist. The tortoise is doing best in remote wild areas untouched by human visitors and development.

The loss of the tortoise can have a widespread effect on the general desert environment, scientists say. The tortoises provide food for the desert kit fox, coyote, bobcat, golden eagle and raven. Snakes, lizards and rodents use tortoise burrows for shelter. The burrowing owl uses the holes for nesting. Kristin H. Berry, a wildlife biologist for the Bureau of Land Management, said, “If we take care of the desert lands to keep the tortoise alive, we’ll be taking care of most other species.”

The plight of the tortoise is an indication of what can happen to the entire desert unless it is offered greater protection and unless the public uses it with more respect and care. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should accelerate efforts to place the tortoise on the list of threatened or endangered species. And the tortoise problem should add impetus to the desert parks and wilderness bill of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.).

The need for wilderness is not just to preserve an area for the fun of a few elitist backpackers, as critics often claim, but to save fragile and delicate regions in their natural state from overuse and development for future generations to appreciate and study. The decline of the desert tortoise is a dramatic example of this need in the California desert now.