The humble but environmentally vital gopher tortoise got a big boost on Wednesday. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) reclassified the gopher tortoise, a species of special concern since 1979, as "threatened," a more protective category meaning the animal has a very high risk of becoming extinct.
The move was critical because staff wildlife managers now have the green light to pursue the development of a new statewide management plan for the turtles.
A special FWC task force of scientists has spent four years laying the foundation, and have also engaged developers, environmentalists, government officials including game wardens and the public in hammering out the details. Although it will take about a year to bring the plan back to the commission, it is needed.
The gopher tortoise's dilemma is that Florida is its primary habitat nationwide, and it is most at home on high, dry, sandy uplands and oak hammocks - the same prime real estate coveted by generations of developers. The battle for that turf has been no contest.
The FWC estimates roughly 70,000 gopher tortoises have been killed just in the last 15 years to make way for new construction. Since the pre-Columbian period, officials say, the gopher tortoise's habitat has shrunk from 11 million acres to about 3 million today. (Imagine moving from a 2,000-square-foot house to one that's 550 square feet.)
In many areas of Florida, such as the Panhandle, the tortoise population declined because they were hunted for food. Now, Florida's unrelenting growth wreaks the most havoc on them.
Why care? Well, diversity is an overused word in many contexts, but it sums up the gopher tortoise's crucial role in nature.
The burrows dug by these turtles can run up to 40 feet long and 10 feet deep. Those bunkers can sustain more than 360 different species, according to the FWC, including several varieties of snakes, birds, insects and rodents. In addition, their digging enriches the overall habitat by bringing nutrients to the surface and allowing new plants to take take hold, FWC biologist Joan Berish told us.
Wildlife managers have tried to work with developers to preserve this unique animal and relocate them to suitable habitat. Many responsible and conscientious developers have made good faith efforts to cooperate.
Yet all too often the state's system made it too easy for developers, even those trying to help, to simply plop down their money for an "incidental taking" permit and unleash the earth-movers, leaving the tortoises to suffocate under an avalanche of dirt. (In Marion County, developers seek about 20 such permits a year.)
Moreover, the program, coupled with a greatly understaffed FWC law enforcement unit, did little to force compliance by unscrupulous developers whose only significant risks were minor criminal charges and losing money by having their project shut down as investigators determined whether an illegal killing had occurred.
The permitting program has one benefit. It has generated $47 million, FWC spokeswoman Joy Hill said, enabling the state to protect roughly 22,000 acres of tortoise habitat, divided about equally between nine state mitigation parks and land provided by developers.
Still, FWC staff has now determined the method is woefully inadequate.
As it stands, developers may set aside land on their site, provide property adjacent to other protected lands, or buy the taking permits. But on-site set-asides reduce the tortoise's natural habitat, relocation can create overpopulation problems or spread disease and permitting facilitates killing.
In contrast, the proposed system seeks to encourage developers to be more proactive in preservation. In the near term, it would under certain conditions relax relocation regulations designed to block the spread of disease. The long range aspect entails urging developers to identify suitable habitat before construction, thus reducing costly delays. Also, Hill told us, developers would no longer simply be allowed to "pay and plow," as the proposed plan will likely mandate on-site conservation easements or a similar preservation maneuver.
Developers ought to embrace the FWC's new strategy because if the turtles creep closer to extinction, the state may have to enact even greater protective measures, possibly hobbling the growth industry. The reworked management plan might not be the perfect fix, but its goal is laudable: allowing the housing industry to thrive and the gopher tortoise to survive.
Link