Biologists scour Mojave in desert tortoise roundup

More than 100 biologists and contract workers fanned out across a nearly pristine stretch of the eastern Mojave Desert on Friday to start rounding up tortoises blocking construction of the first major solar energy plant to be built on public land in Southern California.

On a sunny morning in the height of tortoise courting season, the biologists methodically peered under every bush and into every hole on both sides of a two-mile lane traversing the project site. Following close behind, workers bladed century-old creosote bushes and erected fencing in areas that will soon be declared "tortoise-free zones."

The effort in San Bernardino County's panoramic Ivanpah Valley, just north of Interstate 15 and about 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, disrupted complex tortoise social networks and bloodlines linked for centuries by dusty trails, shelters and hibernation burrows.

Read the full story here.

--Louis Sahagun

Photo: A desert tortoise looks out of its burrow in the Ivanpah Valley. Credit: Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Tirau]

It sickens me to see an acknowledged "pristine" area of our natural and cultural heritage being irreparably robbed of such qualities in order to build an industrial plant. We need to build green energy in already-degraded "brownfields" or other areas already impacted by human development, not in the last remnants of our continent's wilderness.

[THOMAS KOLBY]

Yea, like there are so many people interested in that "pristine" area. They cannot travel fast enough past it and at speeds that prevent anyone from even considering a stop to see the view. There is plenty of rock and sand in this world of "pristine areas" for you to spend...how much of your time???

[Dan]

I belive that solar arrays should be put on all the roofs of heavily populated cities... and leave our pristine desert alone... but once again, LA residents want to treat the desert and waste-land. Some of us who choose to live a simple live without Malls, Parking Lots, freeways... or solar arrays.

[jackfo]

If this uninformed American public would only open up their minds and collect some easily obtained information, we'd go nuclear and bypass this crying.

[David In Alabama]

So, it's OK to disturb endangered species so long as the effort is "green", eh?

The hypocrisy of these green folks has no end. George Will was only partially correct when he said, "Environmentalism is collectivism in drag" -- it's also fascisms and oligarchy in drag; a social order wherein it is determined who makes money (the anointed establishment) and who pays (consumers, the productive class, and the poor) by force.

[Mr Nice Guy]

Use a potato picking machine to begin with. The turtles won't be harmed by it and they can be removed to a safe location.

[Dennis]

Really Tirau, thats what sickens you. Look at the entire United States and what we have done to it. We came over here and decimated everything, thats would should sicken you.

[MonkeyBoy]

If people would read scientific reports and think logically, they would go with nuclear power. It's abundant, clean, and safe. But they still have the panic of the past in their minds, and refuse to progress. Instead, we have to listening to all the whining when it's not even necessary.