Cross-posted at the Writing on the Wal.
Yesterday, I brought you the news that Wal-Mart bought a permit to bury five gopher tortoises alive in order to build a store in Lake Park, Florida. The Humane Society describes the reason and circumstances for their deaths:
Gopher tortoises have evolved to evade danger by escaping to the safety of a burrow, a strategy that worked well when predators posed the primary threat to their survival. But when tortoises retreat to their burrows in an attempt to evade bulldozers and construction crews, they are often entombed under what ultimately becomes a strip mall or a subdivision. Because of their slow metabolism, entombed tortoises may take months to die of dehydration, starvation or suffocation.
To be fair, thousands of gopher tortoises have died this way in recent years, but that's just the point. In some areas of the Southeast, they are now a threatened spcies. In Florida, gopher tortoises are now "a species of special concern." The Humane Society again:
This designation is essentially a step away from a state "threatened" classification. In its listing of imperiled wildlife species, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FFWCC) notes that the gopher tortoise may already meet criteria for a threatened listing.
Yesterday, I told this story to my wife. After she finished crying, she asked a very good question. Why does the State of Florida take money for letting developers kill tortoises? Another Humane Society page answers that question:
Florida offers developers two options to comply with the current regulations regarding impacts on gopher tortoises. They may obtain a permit to relocate tortoises, or take the cheaper route--as Wal-Mart has done--by obtaining a permit for "incidental take" (i.e. accidental killing) of gopher tortoises as a result of development. Developers can then bury tortoises alive, but must pay into a fund intended to purchase habitat for these animals elsewhere. The trouble is, the few acres set aside so far for tortoises aren't likely to be sufficient to offset the continued loss of thousands of tortoises per year. The species' slow reproductive cycle means that recovery from such significant population declines will be prolonged, if not impossible.
[emphasis added]
Shame on Florida. Shame on Wal-Mart.
JR