Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
620 South Meridian Street Mail Station 2-A
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600
(Mark it PUBLIC RESPONSE-GOPHER TORTOISE)

1. Biological Goals. These were based on models that have been put together with estimates, out of date research and simply could not be measured. We want goals that can be measured annually through the first 5 years of the management plan. A new plan should be put into place after five years and based on the successes of the first management plan. Do not place goals that are not economically, politically, or biologically obtainable.
   
   
2. There should be the an outside oversight committee that meets twice a year to review biological and economic goals and objectives. .

1. Heritage Colonies. These are the tortoise colonies that FWC will insure through proper funding, staff, management and monitoring in perpetuity. These are examples of the natural habitats used by tortoises from uplands to islands, flatwoods, coastal strands and others often overlooked in the old literature. The plan should clearly point out target areas, budget and cooperative agreements to sustain these habitats in perpetuity. NOTE: We do not want promises of more than what is feasible.
   
   
2. Other Conservation Colonies: These are other large colonies established in cooperation of public and private conservation lands. A great emphasis will be on various state lands including Water Management Districts, Florida Department of Forestry, FWC lands, CARL and Florida Forever lands.
   
   
3. Local Community Conservation and Education Assurance Colony Program. The plan will recognize that it is important for local communities, governments, schools and individuals to have the right to establish tortoise colonies. Proper programs to establish tortoises by landowners should

Mitigation: (FWC policy should not cause a loss of habitat or management.)

Current studies done in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and in Florida demonstrate that the amount of land to sustain naturally viable tortoise populations is one acre of good habitat or up to three in area. Current mitigation formulas are causing a net loss of habitat at an alarming rage. Mitigation should be changed to allow developers to provide land at an acre for an acre of habitat. This is separate from the cost of relocation. The number of acres should be based on the number of acres to sustain a pod (see Guyer et al).

NOTE: Use the best information available, even if it has not yet gone to press. Much of the work has not yet been published by workers in many states and this data is counter to much of the old literature�s conclusions. This is exceedingly important in planning the future in such a document as this.

Relocations (Relocations should be based on the quality and recipient site needs.)

Relocation should be the primary method of protecting tortoises from land being developed. On site relocation will be treated the same as off site and have minimum site requirements pending the level of Assurance Colony FWC must require that relocation be done by trained people, is done by enclosure for six months of the relocation site (not penning). Appropriate fees are established and provided under contract to the landowner and included a perpetual conservation easement for private land used for relocation. The fee for relocation should, in part pay for that easement. For public properties, fees would go into management and monitoring programs that would insure these activities occur even though there may be annual budget restrictions.

Permits (What is the conservation value of the permit? Its not the application that is important, it is the value of it to help insure the conservation value).

All permit applications should be designed like a contract. The project should be evaluated on proper reports on full burrow counts, all burrows excavated, and in the case of relocation sites, permits given based on proper fencing, analysis of forage and canopy cover, management and monitoring programs. Proper fees and possibly a performance bond should be required.

The largest loss of tortoises are those on single family developments. There is no conservation value in current permitting and the owners have no reasonable way to handle unwanted tortoises or those that are in harm�s way after the development. As part of the assurance colony program and cooperative agreements with local governments and conservation groups working with tortoise mitigation and education, people should obtain a liscence to keep the tortoise or to take the tortoise to a relocation site within a county or region established for this purpose. A fee system would be established to do this.

Cooperative Agreements: FWC does not have the staff or budget to manage tortoise conservation.

Reasonable conservation of this and related species will only occur when this gap is closed through seeking out and obtaining contracts and Memorandum of Understandings that will establish economic and other resources to handle various aspects of tortoise conservation better handled in this manner.

Incentive Programs to Protect Habitat

Encourage Agriculture interest to sustain natural lands that may be lost due to tax burdens. FWC should actively pursue a Conservation Tax Exemption for this purpose and for those who have conservation easements and tortoise and other protected species on their lands.

A fund should be established to insure that tortoise management sites are monitored and managed properly including prescribed burns or an alternative if this is not possible due to neighboring urbanization.

GTCI COMMENTS

GTCI COMMENTS ON THE MANAGEMENT PLAN

1. USE THE ASSURTANCE COLONY PLAN AS THE FOUNDATION FOR THE MANAGEMENT PLAN
   
   1. Establish this plan so FWC can afford to manage and monitor the Heritage Habitats in perpetuity while partners such as State Parks, State Division of Forestry, National Forests, Military lands, County governments, and others who manage natural areas can partner to manage local tortoise populations.
   2. It is important to remember that the primary reason for the failure of conservation of habitats and species is the lack of funding over time. Tortoise habitat can be totally lost without fire, grazing, or mowing within of 20 years.
   
   
2. WHAT IS THE CONSERVATION VALUE? This is the main question FWC should ask in any action taken.
   
   1. URTD testing should only be used as a clinical tool and not one to determine if populations of tortoises should be destroyed. (See the petition to stop testing on the web page.)
   2. The current rules of take should be eliminated and replaced with rules that work to reduce of take of tortoises.
   3. Current methods of mitigation are cumbersome and have little conservation value. Establish a system in each county or region where developers, local governments, and other stakeholders work to establish tortoise conservation lands in a way that essentially provide lands instead of money. Or, in those counties where there are ample lands, establish a management and monitoring fund to ensure habitats are sustained for upland species. Where wetlands are degraded or too small to function for wildlife, exchange those for upland habitat.
   
   
3. ELIMINATE THE CURRENT FWC PERMITTING PROCEDURES - There is little or no conservation value in those that have evolved from those developed years ago.
   
   1. Large land developments including infrastructure must enter into contracts with FWC and local stakeholders to take into account all listed species and natural lands. This should be done BEFORE A SITE PLAN IS DEVELOPED. FWC provides staff to work with the development community to create that best plans, swap lands, large on-site natural areas that have real conservation value.
   2. Establish cooperative agreements on small developments where local communities, State Parks, and other conservation lands can be proper relocation sites for tortoises and other species. These agreements would allow fees to be obtained for permits that in turn would offset site inspections and management of sites.
   3. Single-family properties must have a way to handle tortoises in their yards. They must have a place to put them or get information and support to have them on their lands. People may be able to place tortoises that are in harm’s way into the Assurance Colony Program.
   
   
4. CONSERVATION LANDS TAX EXEMPTION
   
   1. As property taxes increase, large landowners are going to be forced to destroy natural lands and put them into agriculture or timber. This is presently one of the main reasons for habitat loss. A plan has been submitted to FWC to create a state rule that allows counties to create conservation land tax exemptions. This would allow people who wish to relocate tortoises to their properties with ample habitat to get this tax break. Without it, we will continue to lose tortoises, even if development rates slow down.
   
   
5. SUPPORT RESEARCH THAT HAS HIGH CONSERVATION VALUE
   
   1. How do you keep cattle healthy? Make sure their graze and feed is excellent, they have clean water to drink and they are not overcrowded or stressed.
   2. We now know that tortoises require a large diversity of foods in their diet. What we don’t know is what it is in a food plant at the time the tortoise eats it that causes it to select and forage on that particular plant.
   3. Tortoises live in the upper ground water table. That is where their burrow ends are located. This provides moisture and a high relative humidity. However, we are polluting this microhabitat all over the state and, in fact, many tortoise burrows have no invertebrates now. Why?
   4. Most importantly, how can we replace fire as the most important management tool to keep tortoise habitat? New and different ways are needed for areas where prescribed fire is not an option and these options should be studied.
   
   
6. CONSULTANTS MUST HAVE PROPER TRAINING AND BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE
   
   1. Under the current system, just about anyone can do protected species surveys, count tortoises, and relocate them. This results in critical errors. This situation must stop and FWC should require well-trained people to conduct the work, including backhoe operators and field technicians.
   2. Perhaps, through the previously mentioned “contract verses permit”, this issue would require direct accountability to FWC or local government.
   
   
7. RELOCATION IS DONE PROPERLY AND TAKE IS TRULY INCIDENTAL
   
   1. It is imperative that the Management Plan define the proactive efforts that are and will be undertaken to encourage both private and public landowners and managers to participate in the Assurance Colony Program through relocation of tortoises or sustaining habitat and current resident populations.
   2. Emphasis on enforcement and the contracting process should be the goal to ensure that relocation is done properly. A general list can be found in Ashton and Ashton, 2004. Gopher Tortoise, A Life History, Pineapple Press. Specifically each plan should include site enclosure (not penning), vegetative evaluation of carrying capacity, maintaining the relocated tortoises for 6 months on site to allow them to recalibrate their orientation and homing systems, evaluate health, establish a funded monitoring and reactive management plan all based in a conservation easement.
   3. People can have tortoises in their local schools, parks, and proper green spaces and if approved, even their yards. People need to be viewed as a part of the solution and not made to break laws when they are trying to save tortoises. This program along with education, training programs for professionals, and on going information will be provided through a nongovernmental proactive tortoise conservation group.
   4. The only reason for an INCIDENTAL Take Permit is when all due diligence is done on development site and a tortoise is killed by accident. When all is said and done, it is the responsibility of all stakeholders to insure that the only deaths of tortoises are purely accidental and not planned.
   5. The agricultural community must apply for an Incidental Take Permit when converting raw land into agricultural land or pay a per tortoise and per acre fine for the loss of that land to non-agricultural purposes inside of 20 years.
   
   
8. ACCOUNTABILITY
   The management plan will be defined in terms that are concrete enough and tied to a discernable budget and budgetary planning for at least 10 years. These plans must be measurable and tied to realistic objectives to meet the primary goal. These plans should include funds and responsibility of willing stakeholders to achieve these objectives. The management plan will provide for an outside review of stakeholders to evaluate the success of achieving the goal and objectives each year and to recommend changes in policy.

PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD ON TORTOISE MANAGEMENT PLAN, AND LISTING IS NOW. PLEASE SEND IN YOUR COMMENTS. HERE ARE THE DETAILS.

FWC Request for Information

Gopher Tortoise Management Plan Comments, DHSC
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
620 South Meridian Street
Mail Station 1O
Tallahassee, FL 32399-1600

FWC MANAGEMENT PLAN TEMPLATE

Taxonomy
Life History and Habitat
Distribution and population status (a map could be included)
Historic and Ongoing conservation efforts

Reason for Listing/delisting
Present & Anticipated threats (can be more detailed than Biological Status Review)

Conservation Goal (Overarching, inspirational direction)
Conservation Objectives (measurable, time specific results)

Strategies to Achieve the Conservation Objectives
Proposed Regulations
FWC
Other
Permitting Framework (conditions requiring [or not requiring] permits, expected minimization, acceptable mitigation, etc)
Management Actions (including needs and actions by other agencies)
Incentives (include private lands incentives if applicable)
Monitoring Plan
Education and Outreach
Future Research

Priority Actions (Example: work with others to get them involved in species protection)
FWC
Other
Proposed Implementation Schedule (Short Term and Long Term)
Management Plan Review and Revision

Economic Impacts (include potentially affected parties)
Social Impacts (include potentially affected parties)
Ecological Impacts

Appendix I Definitions (Key words and acronyms)