Desert tortoise runs race against progress, politics

February 13, 9:34 PMDC Corporate Ethics ExaminerJim Cunningham

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Air Force photo by Senior Airman Stacy Sanchez

It appears that the desert tortoises in the western deserts of the United States have run into some trouble. Even though they’re spread out across a number of states, apparently they’re a threatened species (even referred to by some as on the “brink of extinction”) – a classification that raises skepticism among some residents of the region because they feel like they see them all the time. These residents, perhaps, don’t realize that, unlike the more agile and swift-moving members of threatened species lists, tortoises can’t zip off before people notice them, and this may lead to the perception that there are still a lot of them around. They’re seen because they’re slow. And, since there are seen, the perception is that they are plentiful.

The tortoise is something of a legend in the region. Most of us are familiar with Groundhog Day. Well, if you live in the deserts of western America, you can forget about Puxatony Phil. These residents rely on Mojave Max and some of them take great pride in predicting when these tortoises will come out of hibernation.

Also unfortunate for the turtle is that it resides in an area viewed as being mostly empty and, therefore, exploitable. Empty, that is, except for the tortoise. Human beings sometimes require vast mostly-empty regions for certain needs like, say, military bases, or a sea of solar panels that would be obtrusive elsewhere.

The military, for example, has had mixed luck co-existing with the turtles. In some cases, they’ve gone the extra mile by creating programs to help the tortoise population like the Head Start Program which helps make sure baby tortoises make it to adulthood.

On the other hand, the military has also been accused of doing a mediocre-at-best job in relocating turtles out of military areas where they would, presumably, be run over by military equipment. Turtles are hard not to love and one has trouble suspecting the military of malice in this case, but it is possible that the military gave the turtles the bare minimum so they could get on with their training operations.

The ultimate answer for the Desert Tortoise is not clear. While some cynics suggest that the tortoises might prefer subdivisions and golf courses, in eastern areas of the country were turtles also run wild, residents take great pride in their Tortoise Reserves.

When progress meets nature, the best solution is often a variety of solutions.