ARIZONA GAME AND FISH DEPARTMENT

The Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) manages desert tortoise populations and is actively involved in management and research. The removal of tortoises from the wild has been prohibited since 1988. AGFD offers guidelines for handling desert tortoises encountered on development projects to reduce potential impacts on tortoise populations. The AGFD's Adobe Mountain Wildlife Center manages an adoption program for legally held tortoises including those propagated in captivity (Table 1). The AGFD and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service co-chair the Arizona Interagency Desert Tortoise Team (AIDTT), which serves as a forum for discussion of desert tortoise issues, with the specific objectives of conducting and coordinating research and management efforts and exchanging information. The AIDTT recently published the Management Plan for the Sonoran Desert Population of the Desert Tortoise in Arizona.

Since 1990 the AGFD has coordinated annual desert tortoise monitoring efforts in cooperation with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The AGFD Heritage Fund has supported a wide variety of internal and external research ranging from population surveys to genetic, health, and other ecological studies. Current projects include continued population monitoring and studies of reproductive ecology, growth, and diet.