Partnership Returns Captive Desert Tortoises to the Wild

Captive desert tortoises are getting a "second chance" to live and reproduce in the deserts of the southwest thanks to a unique partnership among state and federal agencies in Nevada.

As part of the Desert Tortoise Translocation and Habitat Efficacy Study, captive desert tortoises will be released starting March of 1997 onto 20,000 acres of public land south of Las Vegas, Nevada. The translocation project provides researchers with the opportunity to further monitor and observe this threatened species. About 700 healthy tortoises from the Bureau of Land Management's Desert Tortoise Conservation Center will be released in the translocation area during the next year. Forty tortoises will be out-fitted with radio transmitters in each of four seasons to assist researchers with the monitoring of their movements and survivorship. The area is currently underpopulated with desert tortoises and should be able to sustain the addition of several hundred individuals. Although fencing will be required as a barrier to keep tortoises away from busy roads, public access and traditional recreational use of the area will not be affected.

As part of the release effort, scientists with USGS's Fort Collins Science Center will provide research expertise, as well as assistance in monitoring the movements and survivorship of translocated tortoises. The translocation project will provide researchers and land managers with techniques for improving desert tortoise translocation efforts at other underpopulated sites.

The Desert Tortoise Conservation Center, located near Las Vegas, Nevada, was established in 1990 to house desert tortoises left homeless because of human development or other land uses. Biologists have used many of the Center's tortoises to conduct research on tortoise nutrition and reproduction, as well as Upper Respiratory Tract Disease which is suspected of being a major contributor to the decline of wild tortoise populations.

The translocation study is a partnership among the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, National Park Service, Nevada Division of Wildlife, University of Nevada, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

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For more information, please contact:

Phil Medica
Las Vegas Field Station
4765 West Vegas Drive
Las Vegas, Nevada 89108
702.647.5154
phil_medica@usgs.gov