Gopher Tortoises lose their habitat while legal protection is in name only

By Staci-lee Sherwood

The Gopher Tortoise may have legal protection but that means nothing these days.  It’s easier and cheaper for developers to fill in their burrows effectively burying them alive or leaving them homeless, than get a permit to do so.  Neither option is in the interest of the species or conservation.  It’s all done for developers.  The irony is they have no real protection despite what FWC (Florida Fish Wildlife Commission) claims.  The FWC commissioners are all developers and hunters appointed by the pro developer Gov. DeSantis, who replaced pro developer Rick Scott who is best known for the largest Medicare/Medicaid fraud and so on and so on the saga goes.  This is a national crisis not solely a Florida one, but the mistakes Florida is making other states can learn from before it’s too late.

Developers and the Gopher Tortoise

Last year Florida Atlantic University (FAU) removed, or killed, many or all of their tortoises with the approving nod from FWC.  While destroying their habitat they also destroyed the ‘protected’ Burrowing Owl burrows whose habitat overlapped with the tortoises.  One of the FAU board members and former Chair is George Zoley, CEO of the GEO Group (private prison) also involved in the debacle down in Big Cypress called Alligator Alcatraz.  Big Cypress is one of the last places for the critically endangered Florida Panther and Black Bear. The developer destroying a dense forest lacking legal status as a preserve, called Boynton’s forest in Boynton Beach, is Avi Stern, indicted on felony fraud charges for bid rigging on foreclosures.  That didn’t stop anyone on the Palm Beach County Commission or state of Florida from continuing to do business with him.  What FAU campus and the Boynton’s Forest have in common is its habitat for the Gopher Tortoise, but not for long.  Collier County can’t rip up the last remaining tracks of grass in exchange for housing leaving not just the Gopher Tortoise but other protected species like the Florida Panther and Black Bear homeless.

A Gopher Tortoise forages for food unaware his protection fails to protect him or his home

FWC as an agency fosters a culture of corruption that is widely known and widely documented.

According to FWC, the same agency that bends over to appease developers and turns a blind eye to burrows being filled in or outright killing of tortoises, boasts this on their website regarding population, their claims on paper in red the reality in black:

This goal can be attained by achieving the following conservation objectives:

• Minimize loss of gopher tortoises  (they let developers kill them at will then pay a fine)

• Increase and improve habitat  (can’t sell/give away land to developers fast enough}

• Enhance and restore populations  (they would need to stop developing asap)

• Maintain the gopher tortoise’s function as a keystone species  (FWC does nothing to save the Gopher Tortoise or any other species from Burrowing Owls to Sea Turtles to Manatees)

These are the lies the public reads thinking FWC actually does conservation work.  They don’t.  Last official status report, for the public to see, is from 2006.  What a joke.  It’s useless outdated data irrelevant to the daily onslaught of clear-cutting and paving going on.  The claim of 100,000 tortoises today is not substantiated by current factual data and logically is impossible to claim.  None of the biologists at FWC can even answer the phone or email because they know deep down they’re doing wrong but lack integrity and spine to say so.   Even when I was working on three of their permits and appointed to one of their committees, I couldn’t get a straight answer.  The public has no chance either.

https://myfwc.com/media/19511/gt-biostatreport.pdf

Gopher Tortoises deserve better and it’s a shameful disgrace what Florida and FWC call conservation.  It’s just a CON.

How much actual habitat is left?

Developers and home owners wanting to get rid of the tortoises can pay a small fee to destroy their burrows or say nothing and if caught pay a small fine.  Relocating tortoises sounds like a good idea but comes with a high failure rate.  Moving a tortoise out of their native habitat where they know where food is, their burrow is, other tortoises are comes with a very low survival rate.  Their habitat is greatly fragmented and degraded from years of pollution from lead, plastic, heavy metals, algae, pesticides sprayed by FWC….yes the same agency ‘protecting’ them. 

It’s estimated over 80% of the historical range is gone.  They may have legal protection on paper but that’s the only place it exists.  It’s listed as State Threatened in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida and federally endangered in Mississippi and Louisiana.  At the current rate of development, especially for huge AI data centers and the growing contamination of all air, water and land they really are endangered.

Various forms of protection in name only

A Gopher Tortoise burrow

A Gopher Tortoise hides in his burrow from the heat.  They share their burrows with hundreds of other species.  Burrowing owls, fox, coyotes, snakes, lizards, small mammals and insects all share or re-use these burrows.  When developers fill them in they’re potentially killing hundreds of species.  Despite claims on paper few if anyone ever looks to see if these burrows are empty before destroying them.  After speaking with FWC about the FAU Burrowing Owls I wrote about what I know to be true after getting FWC to admit they did nothing to relocate or track the displaced animals

Part of the mating ritual is a dance of sorts by the male.  The hopeful Romeo circles the female and bobs his head up and down and side to side trying to convey interest.  Here this male waits at the entrance of a female’s burrow trying to coax her out with his head bobs.  I watched for almost an hour but she just wasn’t into him

An adult male is smaller than a female.  His shell is more rounded, arched and ribbed displaying a more elaborate design

The adult female is larger, and her shell is flatter and plain

Gopher Tortoise hatchlings less than a week old

Who or what is really driving all this development

In Florida a big driver of development is because there isn’t much else driving the economy other than construction and tourism, which often go hand in hand.  You would think a state wholly dependent on tourism would protect their drinking water, wetlands and natural areas but you would be wrong.  People travel to Florida hoping to see amazing wildlife they’ve heard about or seen in photographs not realizing much of that is gone.  Money spent by tourists hoping to dive in clear water to see colorful reefs are disappointed by the murky polluted water and bleached dying reefs.  The same is true for Everglades National Park and all the preserves and natural areas. 

The vast wildlife that once existed has either been hunted to dwindling numbers or gone from selling off of public land.

The Gopher Tortoise has suffered from all this.  As for the Florida Dept of Environmental Protection (FDEP), only their name is about protection.  They sell off public land for a fraction of what it’s worth to developers and wildlife has nowhere to go.  Florida is having a boom of development not because the housing market or economy are great not because of demand but out of desperation to create jobs where none exist anywhere else.  Throughout Florida there are a ton of empty warehouses up for lease, yet they build more.  There is not enough water for the population already here but they build more.  Future residents will get a shock when they run out of water and can’t sell their home. 

Huge data centers are taking over giant tracks of farmland or public land sold without public knowledge.  Many developers see Florida as the new gold rush of the 1800s.  They come here to get tax breaks and cheap land, hire people for construction here illegally to build sub standard housing then leave.  Many developments are built right on the highway or literally next to high powered electrical grids and transmission towers.  It all reeks of desperation.

How you can help

• Keep track of any vacant lot or green space not currently built on.  These areas are considered ‘unused’ and no value unless they’re called a natural area or preserve.  Even then that doesn’t last forever. 

  
  

• f there is a proposal for development attend public hearings, ask questions about the developer and demand transparency.  Developers are notorious for lying about the size, damage and water usage of their plans.  The Zoning Board is usually where projects get approved

  
  

• Hire a land use lawyer if needed to counter the propaganda from developers

  
  

• Request the land be saved as forever wild in perpetuity, the strongest legal language

  
  

• If you don’t speak up the open land will be sold off and destroyed forever