Heads up people, you might want to look into this to find out if this effects where you play.

Judge blocks off-roaders
WILDLIFE: The ruling temporarily bans access to washes to protect the desert tortoise.
12:20 AM PST on Wednesday, January 5, 2005
By JENNIFER BOWLES / The Press-Enterprise
Siding with environmentalists, a federal judge has ordered the Bush administration to temporarily ban off-roading in desert washes across 572,000 acres in Riverside, San Bernardino and Imperial counties to protect the desert tortoise.

The ban will be in effect until biologists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reassess the impacts of off-roading on tortoises, a species threatened with extinction, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston wrote in issuing the injunction Thursday.

"It's a total travesty," said Ed Waldheim, president of the California Off-Road Vehicle Association. He said he has ridden motorcycles through the area for nearly 30 years. "Washes have been part of the road system for as long as we've been out there," he said.

The off-road ban affects portions of two large wildlife areas overseen by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management that are designated as critical to the survival of the tortoise. Other washes in the two areas, 1.7 million acres all together, were already closed to off-roading under a plan adopted by the Bureau of Land Management in 2002. However, 1,700 miles of designated routes still remain open, said Linda Hansen, the bureau's desert district manager.

In a statement, Hansen said Tuesday that the bureau will launch a closure order and initiate public education to spread word of the ban.

Diane Noda, a supervisor with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the assessment of off-roading impacts on the protected species is expected to be completed by the last week in February.

"Given the biological importance of washes ... they're going to have to go back to the drawing board and decide whether they can permit off-road use," said Daniel Patterson, desert ecologist with the Center for Biological Diversity in Idyllwild.

The center, the Sierra Club and other groups sought the injunction, fearing that off-roading allowed in open wash areas could crush the reptiles and their burrows, kick up unhealthy dust and destroy plants that tortoises need to survive.

Judge Illston took issue with the BLM statement that most off-roading occurs when tortoises are hibernating in burrows.

"The weight of scientific authority suggests that adult tortoises forage during the fall and hatchlings and yearlings emerge during the late fall and winter months," Illston wrote.

She cited a declaration by Glenn Stewart, a Cal Poly Pomona biology professor, who said the reptiles spend an "inordinate amount of time" in washes and that it is very likely that continued off-road use in the washes "will significantly harm the desert tortoise's recovery both in the short and long term."

The injunction is part of a larger lawsuit in which the judge last August struck down opinions by federal biologists that allowed off-road vehicle use in tortoise critical habitat.

In essence, Judge Illston ruled that federal agencies need to consider impacts on imperiled species' ability to recover and not just their survival.

"The court finds that Congressional intent in enacting the Endangered Species Act was clear: Critical habitat exists to promote the recovery and survival of listed species," she wrote. "Conservation means more than survival; it means recovery."

Reach Jennifer Bowles at 951-368-9548 or jbowles@pe.com

Google "desert tortoise", and read up on what the reports and surveys say and educate your selfs. Most of what I read states that most young tortoise are killed by Ravens. Who's population has exploded in resent years here in Ca.

This recent decision is being talked about here too...

http://www.glamisdunes.com/invision/index....showtopic=35188

And you're right. Ravens and a nasty respiratory illness are the primary causes of tortoise death.

Vicki

who gives a crap its the desret.................... some ppl just dont get it

((dang tree huggers aint got nufin better to do cept pick on the duners))