Desert Tortoise Recovery Office

What's Being Done

The desert tortoise range covers over six million acres across four states and Mexico. Although the tortoise has survived for millions of years in the desert environment, there are many new challenges that threaten its existence. Rapid urbanization and the subsequent loss of habitat, people collecting tortoises for pets, highway road kills, vandalism, off-roading, livestock grazing, increased predation and drought all have impacted tortoise numbers.

The California Desert Managers Group (DMG) and other regional work groups, such as the Clark County MSHCP Implementation and Monitoring Committee, coordinate tortoise recovery activities at local or regional levels. The Desert Tortoise Management Oversight Group (MOG) includes state and federal managers in all four states and is the primary mechanism for coordinating range-wide tortoise issues. The MOG facilitates information exchange and progress reviews for the entire recovery effort. The Desert Tortoise Recovery Office (DTRO) provides staff support and recovery direction for both range-wide and local/regional efforts.

The Endangered Species Act requires that all federal agencies consult with the Service when any action taken on federally-managed land could impact a protected species. federal agencies also have to consult with the Service before they issue a permit for an action that occurs on private lands. Federal land management agencies manage the public lands according to specific plans for each administrative unit. These plans include actions that address the needs of the desert tortoise. This cooperation among federal agencies is critical to recovering the desert tortoise. But just as important, is working with state and county agencies, developers, landowners, conservation organizations, and private citizens.

The Desert Tortoise is found in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Mexico. All four states are cooperating in desert tortoise recovery, sharing research results, providing data for inclusion in GIS mapping, and other information that will benefit the species. The map below links to information by state.

A Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) is a tool that counties and other non-federal entities can use to conserve land for species while allowing development to occur. There are two signed HCPs that deal directly with Desert Tortoise. One is the Clark County Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan (MSHCP) in Nevada. This MSHCP requires developers to pay a fee per acre for land they develop into a fund to minimize and mitigate the impact that development has on the tortoise and other desert species.

An example of a cooperative management action in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, is a simple fence that has reduced the number of annual desert tortoise deaths by 75 percent along a two-mile stretch of Arizona State Route 86. Arizona Department of Transportation maintenance crews installed the 24" welded-wire fencing onto the bottom of a right-of-way fence on both sides of the highway. Six inches of the new fence were buried below ground so tortoises could not crawl under it, and the fence was secured to an existing culvert through which the tortoises could cross back and forth under the highway. The fence is 18 inches high with a 1 inch by 2 inch mesh. The fence allows small animals to go through and larger animals to go over. It probably saves some of the smaller animals as well. Similar fencing projects have been implemented in California, Nevada, and Utah by cooperating federal, state and local agencies. Click here for the Service-approved Desert Tortoise Exclusion Fence specifications.

Landowners, Developers & Private Citizens

Private citizens are helping save the desert tortoise through volunteering and by being good visitors to the desert. Learn more on our page How I can help.

Additional Sites & Information:

The Fish & Wildlife Service's office in Nevada is the lead office for recovery of the Desert Tortoise throughout the Mojave.

	DTRO Staff			Land Management For Desert Tortoise
	Desert Tortoise Recovery Planning			How You Can Help The Desert Tortoise
	Science Advisory Committee			Announcements
	DesertTortoise.gov			Meeting Summaries
	Desert Tortoise Habitat & Life History			Reports
	Threats to the Desert Tortoise			Authorized Desert Tortoise Biologist Form