Monday, June 23, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Tortoise Shelter

Facility aids hundreds of displaced animals yearly

Photos by Clint Karlsen. A tortoise walks about the Desert Tortoise Transfer and Holding Facility in south Las Vegas. Tortoises there are released into the wild near Jean in the spring and fall. Michelle McDermott, manager of the desert tortoise facility, holds a tortoise estimated to be about a year old. A desert tortoise traverses its pen at the Desert Tortoise Transfer and Holding Facility.

Behind two miles of chain-link fence crowned with barbed wire sits an installation filled with refugees of Las Vegas' rapid growth.

The 222-acre facility serves as a way station of sorts for as many as 1,500 desert tortoises a year. Here, they're cared for, studied and tagged before they're used for research or released into the wild.

Development has paved over much of the natural habitat of the threatened species, but the Desert Tortoise Transfer and Holding Facility has transplanted into the wild more than 4,500 uprooted tortoises since the release program started in 1997.

Hundreds of tortoises annually have been relocated during cool months in the spring and fall to a suitable desert area southeast of Jean.

However, the number of tortoises released into the area is close to the limit allowed by federal regulations, and Clark County and federal officials are studying several other regions to determine whether they provide adequate food, water and habitat for tortoises to thrive, said Lew Wallenmeyer, administrator of Clark County's Desert Conservation Program.

"There is a limit on the number of tortoises that can be translocated to one area, and we are right at or close to the limit," he said. "We are embarking on an environmental analysis to look at other areas."

Areas under consideration include Mount Sterling northwest of Indian Springs, the Gold Butte area north of Lake Mead, federal land near the Lincoln County border and another federal site near Mormon Mesa south of Mesquite, Wallenmeyer said.

For now, during the summer, tortoises are housed in hundreds of walled pens that line the landscape of the holding facility, in a remote area south of Blue Diamond Road west of Interstate 15.

Tortoises discovered on construction sites, in back yards or just walking down the street are brought to the facility nearly every day, said Michelle McDermott, who manages the facility for the county's outside operator, Southern Nevada Environmental Inc.

"Their habitat is getting destroyed by the development," she said. "We keep growing further and further out, and we just keep hitting their habitat."

The acreage is more than a holding facility. It also serves to protect the tortoises from disease and as a valuable research tool for zoologists and biologists interested in Southern Nevada's largest known reptile.

Tortoises are housed one and two at a time in each of the pens, which are walled but not covered. The pens include a water faucet for moisture, vegetation found in the wild and a man-made burrow to shelter them from the sun as well as predators such as ravens.

Clark County is responsible for operating the federal Bureau of Land Management facility. The County Commission last week approved a two-year contract extension with Southern Nevada Environmental for up to $475,265.

The costs are paid by developers, who by regulation must contribute $500 for each acre they develop to a fund designed to protect the tortoise.

Some of the tortoises that arrive there come from construction sites, but most are found in areas already developed, McDermott said.

Endangered species laws make it illegal to harass, harm or collect a desert tortoise. But many Las Vegans still have them legally as pets, McDermott said. People can acquire a pet from the hatch of someone else's tortoise, or they can adopt from the transfer and holding facility.

But when people move within the Las Vegas Valley, they often can't bring the tortoise because of strict guidelines concerning habitat. Also, it is against the law for a tortoise owner to leave Nevada with the pet, so people moving out of state have nowhere else to drop off the animals, McDermott said.

"A lot of residents of Las Vegas have pet tortoises, and they may have a male and a female and they give their babies to their friends," she said. "People love their tortoises like a dog or a cat, and they don't know what to do when they move. Or, people just find a tortoise and don't know what to do with it."

Nearly 20 percent of the tortoises that arrive at the facility are infected with an upper respiratory disease. The condition can be passed to tortoises in the wild and kill them under stressful conditions such as a lack of water or vegetation, McDermott said.

Diseased tortoises are separated and kept alive for research purposes, McDermott said.

The desert tortoise was federally listed in 1990 as a threatened species under provisions of the Endangered Species Act. Researchers from universities, the San Diego Zoo and the Smithsonian Institute have used the transfer and holding facility.

The U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Nevada, Reno, are studying how reproductive patterns are affected by population density, and the Smithsonian recently studied the dietary habits of the tortoise based on differing vegetation and weather conditions.

Ron Marlowe, a biologist for UNR, said the facility saves time and money because it allows researchers to study a threatened species in its natural habitat without the difficulty, delays and safety concerns of performing studies in the wild.

"It has allowed us to do experiments on tortoises that, if done in the wild, would have been much more costly," Marlowe said. "It has saved a lot of money to determine how to manage and conserve tortoises in the wild."