Desert Tortoises and the BLM
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

[Ed. note: Take action - Tell BLM - DO NOT Slaughter Desert Tortoises]

By James McWilliams
August 2013

This would seem like a raw deal enough for the prehistoric creatures who were happy in the desert, but now the BLM, citing grave financial concerns, has chosen to "euthanize" (shame on you, Washington Post, for such sloppy language) them.

If you're a desert turtle, stay the hell out of Nevada. Real estate developers have replaced tortoise habitats with house farms and, in turn, the Bureau of Land Management has lent a hand to home builders by getting hundreds of tortoises out of the way and placing them in conservation facilities.

This would seem like a raw deal enough for the prehistoric creatures who were happy in the desert, but now the BLM, citing grave financial concerns, has chosen to "euthanize" (shame on you, Washington Post, for such sloppy language) them. “It’s the lesser of two evils, but it’s still evil,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service desert tortoise recovery coordinator Roy Averill-Murray.

The most depressing aspect of this story---an aspect that's indicative of how quick we are to subsume conservation efforts to the economics of land degradation--is the fact that the tortoise conservation program is funded by real estate developers who pay a fee when they destroy the habitat of desert tortoises. All good for the tortoises (well, as far as it goes) when business is booming.

But when a slump hits, as it did a few years ago, it ends in slaughter.

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