The State : Quarantine in Mojave Desert

In an urgent move to protect the endangered desert tortoise, federal officials have imposed a quarantine on 59 square miles of the Mojave Desert, ordering the terrain off-limits to hikers, recreational vehicles and grazing sheep. “We’re losing about 50% of the adult tortoises a year out there right now,” said Lee Delaney, head of the federal Bureau of Land Management’s area office in Ridgecrest. “If that continues, it would be a few short years before we don’t have a tortoise population.” The emergency quarantine is scheduled to last one year while researchers investigate ways to help the problem-plagued reptiles. Recently, about half of the tortoise deaths have been blamed on a respiratory illness, and more than half of the surviving adults show signs of the illness, Delaney said. It is hoped that the quarantine will slow the spread of the disease.