Killing Ravens to Save Desert Tortoises

In response to “Ravens May Be Killed to Save Desert Tortoises,” Part I, Nov. 14:

The Bureau of Land Management is to be commended for turning attention to the increasingly threatened desert tortoise throughout the Mojave Desert. The solution, however, to shoot and poison ravens, seems simplistic at best.

In the first place, much of the damage to the desert tortoise habitat is attributable to off-road vehicles which crush the animals’ burrows as they race across the desert. The exposed and unprotected tortoises are therefore more vulnerable to predators, and the opportunistic ravens naturally move in for the kill.

Yet the BLM--the agency entrusted with the protection of the desert land and its resources--continues to allow destructive activities in sensitive desert areas.

An investigation of the root causes of the decimation of the desert tortoise population--including questioning BLM policies about off-road vehicles--is surely required before the proposed shootings and poisonings become routine.

CHERI RAE WOLPERT

Los Angeles