Gopher tortoise stakeholder group Meeting 9 June 2006(Revised 16 May 2006)
Citrus County Government Center, Lecanto FL
A total of 35 people (18 members of the steering committee) met from 10 am to 4 pm in Lecanto on 9 June 2006. After introductions and reviewing and adopting the agenda, the following discussion and agreements were made.
Listing.
Commissioners acted 7 June to accept a recommendation to change the state listing of gopher tortoises to Threatened and initiate preparation of the required management plan. Stakeholders were congratulated on their interventions on the topic to the Commissioners. A significant element of public concern was discontinuing burial of tortoises under permit and Commissioners were advised of staff and stakeholder discussions to develop a new permit process to accomplish this. A public comment period inviting topics for inclusion in the management plan will be opened within 45 days and the Stakeholder group will be advised and encouraged to submit comments directly as well as through the group. Greg Holder explained that movement to threatened status will only occur after the management plan is approved by Commissioners (anticipated June 2007). Current rules and penalties remain in effect until that change. Following the change to Threatened listing, intentional killing and wounding of gophers becomes a felony under state statute but the FWC rule and penalty structure is expected to remain as currently.
Report on implementation of interim relief measures for permit issuance. The new measures are in operation and new guidelines posted to FWC web page. Advisement to current permit holders had not been received and FWC agreed to check and expedite this action. Also, stakeholders requested that FWC notify county environmental offices re: new interim measures. Concern was expressed that permanent suspension of URTD testing for relocation would not be implemented until the final adoption of the management plan. It was suggested that GT-2 draft a ‘white paper’ on this issue.
After discussion the stakeholder group unanimously requested FWC to examine this issue promptly and consider suspension of URTD testing at latest by end of 2006 and prior to adoption of the whole plan.
Proposed Gopher management plan.
The following topics were suggested by stakeholders for consideration by FWC in plan development:
- Provide stakeholders with the plan outline as soon as it is available.
- Contact Counties directly for their inputs
- Contact DFL Dept Community Affairs to solicit information on effect of listing and plan on County Comprehensive plans. E.g. effect of non-burn buffers on gopher habitat management.
- Develop a model ordinance that counties could use to develop their county gopher management.
- Integrate gopher habitat management with general state planning processes.
- Integrate land acquisition for gopher habitat with other compatible acquisition goals (e.g. multi-species objectives).
- · Integrate gopher management plan with existing actions and recommendations of the Comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy recently adopted by FWC.
- Include a schedule of practical implementation for plan elements (required in plan)
- Include accurate summary and detailed reference to current best science information on gophers as basis for management actions (e.g. Red Cockaded Woodpecker Plan)
- Present functional parts of the plan in a lose leaf binder format to allow later revision.
- Include an assessment of operational resources(funds, staff) FWC requires to implement the plan.
- Consider broad legislative goals, specifically establishing tax incentives for conservation and management of wildlife habitat modeled on agricultural tax exemptions.
- Make gopher conservation self sustaining by structuring fees and penalties.
- Make sure that plan addresses disease concerns.
- Emphasize incentives rather than punishments.
Biological Goals.
The group considered and discussed the draft Biological goals proposed by FWC. Only four responses received to request from last meeting for steering committee to attempt to draft goals- indicates difficulty and complexity of this process. Key issues that stakeholders considered were:
- Recognition that the goal was overarching, general and inspirational and supported by objectives that were measurable and with specific time lines.
- The need to restore habitat and improve habitat quality.
- Maintaining/restoring gophers in all 67 counties.
- Clarifying the difference between take that is truly incidental (i.e. unanticipated and unexpected) pursuant to permitted activity and the current useage for take permitted after payment of a mitigation fee and allowing deliberate burial.
- · Concern that linking Goals to FWC listing criteria would allow continued declines; should a goal be to de-list and stabilize?
- Recognition that specific details of habitat management, acquisition, permits and activities should be covered within the management plan and don’t need to be explicitly included in the general goal.
After discussion, a modified Goals statement was drafted for forwarding to FWC. (attachment coming soon)
Permit Process.
The group focused on the issue of how to best handle disposition of single ‘waif’ or ‘rescued’ tortoises, i.e., tortoises presented to FWC or falling into public hands for which there is no known origin and currently no permit process that allows relocation. Joan Berish explained that staff spend a large amount of time and effort on these cases and appealed to stakeholders for their thoughts on a solution. Stakeholder estimates of the number of such cases range from 10,000 – 70,000/year. The group agreed that including permit provision should be developed to allow these tortoises to be properly relocated. Components on such a system would be a person or persons to coordinate, funds to cover expenses, adequate control and oversight to discourage abuse of the system, and liability issues of involving the public in entry to private lands for rescue purposes. Particular ideas raised were:
- Two salient questions: Who picks up these tortoises? And where do they go?
- Establish a statewide coordinator and system to coordinate.
- Permit private recipients to receive and maintain these waifs.
- Create individual possession permits.
- Include this issue in Community based programs
- Address using the new 'relief valve' of small scale relocation.
- Coordinate with exhibit and educational facilities who could house many such tortoises.
- Coordinate with UF/IFAS Master naturalist program.
- Coordinate with members of conservation organizations, herpetological societies and other interested groups.
- Add a condition to existing relocation permits to allow voluntary acceptance of waifs into these projects.
- Develop an "adopt a tortoise" program (investigate why previous proposal for this was not implemented)
- Educate the public on a large scale about when tortoise rescue is and is not appropriate and available resources and recipients.
- Explore the possibility for seeking external funds to meet costs of such a program.
To progress the issue and develop a recommendation for FWC an ad-hoc task force consisting of Matt Aresco, Ray Ashton, Ron Concoby, Rebecca Eagan, Laurie Macdonald (or other Defenders rep), and Joan Berish(FWC point of contact) agreed to develop ideas and a recommendation for the next meeting.
Steve Godley showed several graphs regarding tortoise mitigation since the early 1990’s: these Excel files will be on the Sharepoint site.
Finally, the group requested FWC to post the location and area of current mitigation parks onto the Sharepoint site.
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