28th Annual Meeting and Symposium of the
Desert Tortoise Council, February 21-23, 2003
Abstracts

Zero Take Strategies For Construction Projects In High Density Tortoise Habitat

Gilbert Goodlett
EnviroPlus Consulting, 1660 West Franklin Avenue, Ridgecrest, CA 93555

Resource agencies have required biological monitoring on construction projects to mitigate the potential adverse affects of development activities since the desert tortoise was listed as a threatened species 13 years ago. Few changes in monitoring techniques have occurred in that time. On the recent High Desert Power Project, a 32-mile gas pipeline was constructed from June to August between Kramer Junction and Adelanto, California. About 50 individual tortoises were observed in hundreds of encounters during the project and tortoises were active every day during construction activities. None were injured or killed. It is thought that innovative techniques utilized on the project contributed to achieving zero take. Some of these strategies included the following: extensive pre-construction surveys to identify sensitive resources and effective dissemination and utilization of these data, fencing the construction right-of-way in high density tortoise habitat, building enclosures around active tortoise burrows adjacent to construction areas, use of burrow transmitters to remotely monitor tortoise activity, monitoring of tortoises as well as construction activities, minimizing burrow excavations and tortoise relocations, and establishing a management structure that encouraged staffing flexibility and innovative thinking.