The Navy and the Bureau of Land Management have approved a $50 million dollar plan to remove 1,500 tortoises from a Marine Corps base in California.
It’s the largest tortoise relocation plan of its kind in the Mojave Desert. It will take place later in March or in early April at the Twentynine Palms base, in order to clear out 88,000 acres of space, The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports.
Congress granted the 88,000 extra acres to the Marine Corps in 2013 so Marines could have more room for live ammunition training.
However, for years, the presence of a sizable tortoise population — at risk of extinction — has gotten in the way. The desert tortoise population has declined since the 1980s by as astonishing 90 percent, likely due to drought, disease, too many ravens and new suburban developments.
Now, the plan is for biologists to capture the tortoises as they leave their burrows in search of wildflowers and other food and then place them on helicopters for transport to nearby areas.
These nearby areas are home to increased amounts of food for the tortoises and more rabbits, which means that tortoises will be at less risk from coyotes.
Additionally, if the coyotes get out of hand in preying on the tortoises in the new area, the military plans to gun them down.
Still, environmentalists aren’t happy with the decision.
“It is going to be a direct hit on the limited amount of habitat the desert tortoise has left at a time when their numbers are declining,” Center for Biological Diversity biologist Ileene Anderson said.
“This is the largest translocation of tortoises in the Mojave Desert, and they’re moving them to areas where tortoises are dying off and we don’t know why,” Anderson said.
Once the tortoises are removed, the Marine Corps is set to launch new training exercises in August with live ammunition and tanks that make use of the new space.
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