6 Responses to Please Help Me

1. sadlyyes August 13th, 2009 at 9:27 am «

   http://salsa.democracyinaction…../campaign.

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2. sadlyyes August 13th, 2009 at 9:36 am «

   Feds Propose New Desert Tortoise Translocation Despite Past Disaster

   LOS ANGELES— The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Department of the Army on Friday released an environmental assessment that proposes to move more than 1,000 desert tortoises from their current habitat, despite the previous disastrous desert tortoise translocation in 2008. To date, of the approximately 600 desert tortoises that were moved in 2008, 252 tortoises have died in the translocation area. Many of the deaths (169) were the direct result of canid predation. The Bureau is providing the public only 15 days – until August 14, 2009 – to comment on the upcoming plan to move an additional 1000 tortoises.

   “Fort Irwin’s original translocation program was disastrous for tortoises, and it is unfathomable that they are proposing essentially the same disaster for 1,000 more,” said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity.“ This species is already threatened with extinction, and this proposal is destined to kill off even more of the population.”

   Desert tortoise translocation has never been attempted on such a large scale as it has for the Fort Irwin project. Even “successful” small-scale translocations have had a more than 20 percent mortality rate. Now, the translocations, along with other threats, are pushing the tortoise closer to extinction.

   Read more.

   Learn more about the desert tortoise.

   Contact: Ileene Anderson….

   THE LINK IS BAD,IM CALLING THEM NOW
3. sadlyyes August 13th, 2009 at 9:49 am «

   Act Now to Save Desert Tortoises

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   Last year, more than 250 desert tortoises died after a disastrous attempt by the Army to relocate 600 of the imperiled tortoises to make way for a tank-warfare training area in the California desert. Now, the Army and the Bureau of Land Management are rushing forward with a plan to move over 1,100 more tortoises — and have given the public a tiny, 15-day window of opportunity to express itself on this lethal proposal. We need your help now.

   The translocation effort and other threats are pushing the tortoise closer to extinction. Desert tortoise translocation has never been attempted on such a large scale. Even so-called “successful” small-scale translocation projects have had a more than 20-percent mortality rate. Having survived tens of thousands of years in California’s deserts, desert tortoise numbers have declined precipitously in recent years in the face of disease, crushing by vehicles, military base expansion, suburban sprawl, habitat degradation, and predation by feral dogs and ravens.

   Speak up for the tortoises today by sending a letter to the Bureau of Land Management. With only a few days to provide public input, it is essential that we get a strong public response questioning the need for the translocation, demanding a full environmental review and assurances that more tortoises will not die, and an extension to the comment period to allow for thorough science-based comments to be provided by scientists and the public on this controversial project.

   August 13, 2009

   Subject:
   No More Deadly Desert Tortoise Translocations

   The draft Environmental Assessment for the translocation of more than 1,000 desert tortoises requires a much longer public comment period than 15 days. Please extend the deadline for an additional 60 days so that members of the public have a fair chance to participate in this important process. In light of the mortality of desert tortoises during the 2008 translocation, I am particularly concerned that the Environmental Assessment for this proposal gives short shrift to the complex issues that would assure a much higher level of survival for this declining species. The desert tortoise is a bellwether for the health of the western deserts, where it has lived for tens of thousands of years. Although more than 250 desert tortoise deaths were documented during the previous translocation effort, the new translocation plan falls far short of identifying and implementing strategies to minimize desert tortoise deaths and ensure the survival of the species in the western Mojave Desert. Given the precedent set by the disastrous translocation in 2008, the Army and Bureau of Land Management need to complete a full environmental review, including an Environmental Impact Statement, as well as a much more comprehensive translocation plan. The current Environmental Assessment fails to make a full accounting and analysis of the 2008 translocation effort including the number of tortoises moved, the number that died or were harmed, the cause of death or harm, and measures implemented to minimize deaths and harm. It fails to justify the need to move all of the desert tortoises from their home ranges. It fails to minimize future deaths, completely forsaking analysis of the primary cause of tortoise mortality: predation by canids. It fails to address preventing tortoises from trying to return to their home territories, which puts them at greater risk for predation and disease. The alternative analysis in the Environmental Assessment is not comprehensive. It also fails to address the actual carrying capacity of the proposed translocation areas, especially in light of global climate change. If tortoises must be moved, please make sure that translocated and resident tortoises are not harmed.
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   Please take action by August 14, 2009.

   Desert tortoise photo by Beth Jackson, USFWS.

   In 2001, federal law expanded the Fort Irwin military base, located north and west of Barstow California, by 133,000 acres. Most of the expansion land is inside critical habitat for the federally threatened desert tortoise, and contains some of the last high-density tortoise populations in the western Mojave Desert Recovery Unit for the species, established under the Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan.

   To mitigate the severe impacts to desert tortoise from the base expansion, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for implementing the Endangered Species Act, required the Army to move desert tortoises out of harm’s way. Approximately 600 tortoises were moved in the spring of 2008. 252 tortoise deaths (both resident and translocated tortoises) have been documented as a result. Against the recommendations of leading epidemiologists, healthy animals were moved into existing diseased populations of resident tortoises infected with an often-deadly upper respiratory tract disease. Because tortoises have superlative “home-range fidelity” — meaning they tend to cling to their home territory no matter what — many of the tortoises, once moved, desperately tried to make the long journey home to their habitat on the military base.

   In October 2008, due to mounting death tolls and legal actions initiated by the Center for Biological Diversity, the relocation campaign was suspended. Now the Army wants to initiate a second phase by moving the remainder of the southern expansion translocation (89 tortoises that have not previously been moved) as well as the much larger western expansion translocation, which is estimated to be home to an additional 1,000-plus tortoises.
4. Cujo359 August 13th, 2009 at 11:13 am «

   I once visited Ft. Irwin on business. Everyone who visits has to get an unexploded ordinance/wild animal briefing. They told us that if we saw a tortoise on the road, we were to wait for the thing to get out of the way. Handling them confuses them. I’m a bit surprised they are trying to move so many. Seems to me they’d know that’s somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible.
5. tejanarusa August 13th, 2009 at 12:40 pm «

   What, OMG. Great timing. We’re all a little busy trying to save our own lives….Okay, making a note. grumble. No rest for the weary librul…
• sadlyyes August 13th, 2009 at 5:29 pm «

  thankyou i love you!!!! i have a rescue tortise with 3 leggs

  I LOOOOOOOOOOVE her very much,she eats out of my hands