I have had an opportunity to skim through most of the plan and have started on the permitting section now. I want to say that this effort demonstrates that the FWC has taken many comments to heart and made considerable changes in this version. I am pleased to say that what I have seen thus far will eliminate the second scourge on the gopher tortoise conservation effort, the elimination of Incidental Take as a policy. Of course the first rule to be eliminated was one of the greatest travesties in modern conservation efforts, the mandatory URTD testing. Let’s be sure that this does not get revived as the methodologies are established to carry out the plan.

The steps present in the plan to bring together FWC with local government agencies, other state agencies, communities and private landowners and conservation groups to create an Economically Sustainable conservation plan. THESE NEED TO BE STRONGER. This plan can generate land, money and cooperation between all stakeholders through discussions and planning that will insure tortoises and other species and their habitats will be sustained in perpetuity without gouging the developer, It opens up relocation on private lands which can help support private land conservation including farmland to make money and reason to sustain natural habitat. If done properly, the stakeholders can work together on a county by county basis and come up with plans not just to acquire land but set up programs that will insure that monitoring and management will take place on a scheduled basis for all lands supporting wildlife. This includes county and state supported conservation lands and those managed by the Department of Forestry. THE PLAN IS WEEK IN RECOMMENDING POSITIVE ACTIONS FOR AGRICULTURE AND SILVICULTURE AND A COMMITTEMENT TO CONSERVATION TAX EXEMPTIONS, ORGANIZED GRANT PROGRAMS AND PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE TO LANDOWNERS TAKING ON TORTOSIES AND OTHER PROTECTED SPECIES.

Professional Standards

It has become extremely evident to a number of us working on tortoise excavation and rescue that there is a need for consultants and backhoe operators and FWC staff to be trained properly in the methods used to manage tortoises. It is also important for occasional scrutiny of workers to insure that they are using proper methods to insure accuracy and safety for the tortoises and workers in what they do. Without this more tortoises are going to die as they have been and not counted on any list.

Five or Fewer/ Single Family Homes.

I encourage members and friends to carefully look over this plan and work on the most important aspects as outlined below and in future comments. The major area of take that is still being proposed is the Single Family home sites or what FWC calls the 5 tortoise or fewer. THE PROPOSED PLAN WILL NOT WORK ANY BETTER THAN THE CURRENT ONE, IN FACT WORSE. Without the help of the counties who can put inspectors on the site and stop land clearing until the tortoises are moved from the site, then this will not work. The fee per tortoise will likely cause county commissions and others to work politically to eliminate it. If this happens the problem will continue to kill more tortoises and take more land than all of the land ever scrutinized by FWC or the numbers ever counted as lost. This is all under the fact and figures measuring take of tortoises. This must stop and the FWC must give the counties the ability to handle this within their own staff. The money they gather can help off set relocation site costs. This is part of the assurance colony program of structured fees being

Add-Establish an expert tortoise committee to review management plans for sites that have natural tortoise habitat and any public lands acting as recipient sites.

Add-Establish and review on going habitat and tortoise monitoring programs.

Add-As part of the mitigation for habitat loss, establish and utilize as a monitoring and management fund within a nonprofit organization that will fund emergency monitoring and management for tortoise relocation sites and key heritage sites.

Note-Easements themselves do not necessarily protect or cause management to be done on private lands.

ADD-FWC will work toward Conservation Land Tax Exemptions for owners that have easements and are managing for tortoises and other upland habitat

ADD-FWC will provide expertise to assist landowners with other forms of economic gain like silviculture, agriculture, game management to establish a program of tortoise management that will not impact that management but may change some practices.

NOTE: Genetic diversity is a cat that is out of the bag and IS NOT A VIABLE GOAL. People have and are moving tortoises all over the state. As I write this, we have at least 4 populations donating large numbers to Nokuse. Also there are no genetic variations that could be taken to the SSP level except for the most liberal geneticists. New data on tortoises indicate their extreme conservatism and their ability to interbreed without consequence. However, I believe that relocations should be directed to the donor county or surrounding counties first and foremost.

ADD- Establish active community tortoise conservation programs. Create cooperative programs between developers, counties and other stakeholders to create a mitigation plan that works toward solving all local issues in tortoise conservation including land acquisition, proper funding for monitoring and habitat management.

ADD-Develop cooperative permitting programs with counties that allows them to issue permits that require site inspections and the relocation of tortoises to a protected recipient site. These are the “single family home sites” or the 5 or fewer permits.

Encourage recipient site owners to develop the best possible forage, canopy/shrub layer and burrow sites that will increase carrying capacity to 4 tortoises per acre in areas exceeding 10 acres. Through this process, it provides an economic incentive for landowners to start out with the best possible habitat where only allowing 2 tortoises per acres encourage people to do essentially nothing which means the tortoises start out with the minimal. There is no conservation value in not encouraging recipient site developers to increase their income and provide the best of the best.

Oversight by professional committees on public lands that have tortoise populations including DEP, DOF, WMD, and FWC to insure that there is routine monitoring. Also these committees should have oversight responsibilities with draft management plan that is coming up for review by their agencies and land committees. Note: Despite the rules in place that require the protection of certain habitats and listed species, these are often ignored in state agencies and these are put into production or open to the public with poor data on which to determine the impacts of the activities.

Cooperation with County conservation lands program, Environmental Services, and Codes Enforcement to create a system to protect the large number of tortoises located on Single Family development areas and to relocate tortoises from these areas to relocation sites on conservation lands and develop a system of monitoring and management on these lands.

Require that consultants are trained and can carry out donor site work such as counting populations are required to conduct work that provides the most accurate and verifiable counts of tortoise burrows and measurement of tortoise habitat (with or without tortoises present).

All permitting actions should be able to clearly answer what is the conservation value?

ADD- As part of the changes include that GT specialists that have had in the field training will be part of the permit team to evaluate real conditions and situations pertaining to the permitting process.

This method simply will not work and has no more conservation value than the current rules.

The Loss of Acreage and Tortoises is due to this form of development ii

The most common form of home site development within the state of Florida is the subdivision where the area has been divided into saleable lots according to county or city regulations. In some counties, this form of home development accounts for as much as 80% of the land being developed outside of the city limits and a large part of development within some cities. These usually have minimal infrastructure such as an access road. The individual lots are usually sold to individuals, real-estate or home building companies. These subdivided areas are most commonly found at the urban fringe or rural areas just outside city limits. The size of the lots can vary from 50 acres to less than a quarter acre. Unless the area is within sewage treatment service provided by a local municipality, homes rely on their own septic tank service. Environmental consultants are not involved in most activities in these forms of development because of the size and permitting requirements.

The fact that in most counties this is by far the most common from of development which takes the most land and much of this is tortoise habitat, then this is the most impacting form of development, both in land and potential take of gopher tortoises and other species.

The county with the jurisdiction usually has several permits that cover such things as land clearing (part of DCA requirements for protection of natural habitats as well as protected species) (reg. citation). Other permitting includes structural, electric, and septic tanks. Included in the permit requirements are some surveys for protected species in some counties, evaluation of soils, sitting of septic tanks, and protection of wetlands. Many of these permits require visitation by county staff for inspection prior to or after the action has taken place.

Individuals are responsible for the protection or relocation of tortoises and other protected species on these types of development. Homebuilders or landowners are responsible for encircling a tortoise burrow with a 25 ft radius circle of stakes and take to avoid negative impacts to the burrow. If the site is going to be cleared or if construction is going to go within the 25 ft radius, then the responsible party must obtain a five or fewer permit to relocate the tortoises on site but out of harm’s way and possibly establishing some form of fencing to hold the tortoise in place outside of the developing area.

How do landowners know to get permits? FWC or GTCI web pages, certain counties provide information. Neighbors complain to FWC or in some counties site inspectors inform the landowners. Some counties have rules or regulations that require specific relocations or actions to be taken to protect the tortoise. It is highly likely that a vast majority of landowners do not know about these requirements.

There are a number of reasons why this form of permitting is not saving land or tortoises. First, most people do not know they have tortoises on their property and secondly and the do not know they need to have permits and have to protect them if they do. Some do not elect to get permits because they do not want tortoises on their property and all too frequently they are guided by builders and land clearers to ignore their presence because “the problem will go away when the land is cleared.” This attitude is brought on by the fact that outside of counties that do check for protected species, no one is likely to complain or they will get caught. Up to the burrow rule change, if they did get caught, the chances of getting citied were quite slim.

Under the new management plan the FWC will revise the approach to handling this form of permitting by the following:

The purpose of this permitting would change to protecting the large numbers of tortoises on these properties and to recover at least in part habitat that is lost to this form of development statewide.

FWC is aware that it is currently not able to enforce the permitting requirements because of the large volume of development in this category throughout the state. However, FWC recognizes that local governments have developed permitting infrastructure that could possibly become the foundation for managing this form of development. With this in mind, FWC will establish a plan with willing local governments to:

Inform landowners of their responsibility to protect tortoises and the permitting process.

Establish a permitting plan that may possibly be turned over to willing counties which would help to insure compliance through setting rules that would not allow land clearing until the site was reviewed by an inspector and permits issued.

The agreement would allow the local government to set fees to cover administrative and actual costs and to

Allow counties to establish the permitting program so that tortoise permits would support the relocation of the tortoises locally and support local government conservation lands programs and/or tortoise relocation land acquisition, or funds for proper management and conservation of tortoise conservation lands in the area.

Allow local governments to permit entire communities that establish a community tortoise conservation program. This program as part of the over all Assurance Colony Approach to tortoise relocation program would allow local communities to establish community wide conservation efforts including moving tortoises from sites being developed, maintain tortoise reserve areas, establish education programs for residence to encourage tortoises in yards and reduce potential hazards to tortoises like free ranging dogs and cats, road signs to keep people aware of tortoises that may wander on roadways and other ways to allow local residence to conserve local tortoises and habitat.

Establish multiple agreements between the local governments, FWC, and where appropriate, State Parks, Forestry, or FWC have lands within the county to create relocation sites for tortoises within SFH sites can be relocated. The fees charged to landowners in these situations would go to establishing proper relocation sites and then pay for the relocation, monitoring and management of these sites in perpetuity.

WHERE THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT IS NOT WILLING

FWC would work to create a plan that educates the landowners and builders within SFH developments in any county that they are required to obtain permits for tortoises. Under these circumstances FWC may:

Establish fees that cover the costs of maintaining this aspect of permit management including some form of site inspection, relocation and protection of habitat. The administration of the program in counties with large SFH developments in tortoise habitat may require that contractors be hired to carry out the permitting and monitoring of compliance.

Permits would be obtained online from the FWC web page but would be passed on from the regional office to the contractor to inspect the property and to insure that any tortoises were relocated from the property and fees were collected.