26th Annual Meeting and Symposium of the
Desert Tortoise Council, March 16-18, 2001
Abstracts

"Planning" to Save the Tortoise in the California Desert

Michael J. Connor
Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee, 4067 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside, California 92501

Management of Gopherus agassizii in the California desert has been a major component of Federal planning efforts since long before the tortoise's emergency listing under the Endangered Species Act in 1989. The 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act established the 25 million acre California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA), directed the Bureau of Land Management to develop a plan to manage it, and marked the start of a 25 year planning odyssey by the Bureau that continues today. In 1994, the USFWS published a Recovery Plan for the Desert Tortoise (Mojave Population) that laid out a series of recommended actions to achieve the long-term goal of delisting of the tortoise through recovery. The nonprofit Desert Tortoise Council, Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee, and California Turtle and Tortoise Club are committed to ensuring that the Recovery Plan is implemented in the California deserts, and to this effect designated the author to represent them in the bioregional planning efforts that are underway. This presentation will evaluate the ongoing tortoise planning efforts for adherence to Recovery Plan recommendations.

Preparation of tortoise specific management plans has been a slow process. A management plan on the Desert Tortoise Natural Area was signed in 1988. This plan was drafted for the BLM by the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee and, while adequate at the time, predated the listing of the tortoise and is now in need of substantial revision. The 1994 Rand Mountains Fremont Valley Management Area plan included 88 management actions the vast majority of which have never been implemented. This plan also predates the publication of the Recovery Plan and needs to be updated.

The three bioregional planning efforts that are expected to carry tortoise recovery in California have yet to bear fruit. The West Mojave Plan has been over 10 years in the making but recent Congressional action related to the proposed expansion of Fort Irwin has added new purpose and urgency. A draft of the NECO plan was released February 26, 2001 after an 8-year effort. The National Park Service component of the NEMO plan has been released in the draft General Management Plan for Mojave National Preserve, and a draft of the BLM component is expected by summer. Each of these plans claims to be scientifically driven and compatible with the Recovery Plan. However, political considerations have assured that none aspire to fully implement the Recovery Plan's recommendations but tend instead to enshrine current management practice within a DWMA framework. Continuing declines in tortoise numbers documented at the permanent study plots throughout the region and increasing calls from biologists for its listing under the Federal Endangered Species Act to be upgraded from threatened to endangered belie the compatibility of current management with tortoise recovery.