25th Annual Meeting and Symposium of the
Desert Tortoise Council, April 21-24, 2000
Abstracts

Translocation as a Tool for Conservation of the Desert Tortoise: Is Translocation a Reasonable Strategy for Desert Tortoises Displaced by Urban Expansion?

C. R. Tracy¹, K. E. Nussear¹, D. S. Wilson², K. Field^1,3, P. A. Medica⁴, R. M. Marlow⁵, M. B. Saethre^1,2, P. S. Corn⁶, and E. T. Simandle^1
1,3Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Biology, and Biological Resources Research Center, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557
^2,5Biological Resources Research Center, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557
²Current Address: Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Chico, CA 95929
³Current Address: Arizona Game and Fish Department, Phoenix, AZ
⁴U.S. Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, 6770 S. Paradise Rd., Las Vegas, NV 89119
⁶Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Missoula, MT 59807

Translocation may be the only biologically and socio-economically acceptable strategy for dealing with tortoises displaced by urban expansion. Since 1997, we have translocated literally thousands of captive, and displaced, desert tortoises to several sites in Nevada and Utah. Some of these sites were thought to be good tortoise habitat, and some of the sites were considered to be different from that thought to be good tortoise habitat. At each site, we measured survivorship, reproduction, movements, distances, home ranges, social interactions, burrow selection, and habitat selection. Tortoises translocated to habitats thought to be not tortoise habitat, tended to move greater distances in the first year after translocation than did resident wild tortoises and tortoises translocated to good tortoise habitat. However, all tortoises translocated to good tortoise habitat, including long-time pet tortoises, eventually were found to not be statistically different from wild tortoises in all of the dependent variables that we measured. Our data suggest that translocation can be a humane way to deal with tortoises whose habitat has been destroyed. Additionally, our results suggests that translocation may be a strategy for supplementing depauperate populations of desert tortoise as part of plan to recover this species. However, this latter use of translocation is controversial, and likely needs further research if only to convince the most conservative of those who manage this biological resource that translocation is efficacious.