Hunters now in environmentalists' sights
Telling the Department of Fish and Game and the Fish and Game Commission they'd sue them if they didn't get their way, a collection of environmental groups has petitioned the commission to close the Mojave National Preserve to hunting much of the year under the specious guise of protecting endangered desert tortoises.
Ironically, even the National Park Service hasn't asked the state to do any special closures because their scientists recognize hunting is not an issue in the protection of tortoises.
The 11-page petition asks all hunting and gun possession be curtailed between Feb. 1 and Aug. 31 in the preserve, and hunting of cottontail rabbits, jackrabbits and predators be eliminated. Night hunting with lights also would be banned.
The petitioners list three reasons for the necessity of the changes.
First, they cite reports that say 15 percent of tortoises found dead were killed by gunshot. Second, they suggest hunters leaving carcasses and trash in hunting areas increases the raven population, and ravens perhaps are the biggest known predator on tortoises. Last, they suggest road use by hunters is a problem because many tortoises are killed on roads.
All three arguments are, in fact, wrong or the facts are misrepresented.
First, the studies on tortoise mortality showed about 15 percent of tortoise shells (mislabled carcasses by the petition) have signs of gunshot, but there was no forensic analysis to determine if the bullet holes in the carcasses were the cause of death or made postmortem.
Target shooting still was allowed in all the areas where these studies were done and one scenario is that plinkers found the shells and used them for target practice. This is correlated by mortality studies in remote areas, where hunting is more likely to take place, in which few shells had bullet holes.
Second, the petition pointed out desert tortoise populations have declined in the Preserve, although that data is sketchy. Even if taken at its face value, the number of hunters in the area has actually declined in the same period, so increases in raven populations and their predation cannot be blamed on hunters.
The National Park Service has been improving roads, facilities, and non-hunting visitation in the preserve, and the increase in ravens and other scavenging predators that also eat tortoises, is far more likely a result of other human uses in the desert that increase trash.
Last, the petition blames hunters' road use as a factor in tortoise mortality, even though they are more likely to be aware of tortoises and less likely to run one over than a tourist. The petition said in one study, 40 percent of tortoises found dead (again, we're talking about shells or pieces of shells, not fresh carcasses) were killed by gunshot or vehicles, even though there was no way to be sure gunshot or vehicles actually caused the tortoise death.
While there's no question tortoises are killed on roads, especially paved roads with vehicles whizzing along at 50 mph to 80 mph, the evidence of actual mortality caused by humans is very small.
Cliff McDonald, a long-time Needles hunter and conservationist who has battled to keep man-made wildlife water in the desert, points out that the Desert Tortoise Council Advisory Board, one of the groups involved in filing the petition, said in 2001 direct human mortalities represent only 3 percent of tortoise deaths (and that was assuming the inflated mortality speculated to be caused by vehicles and gunshots).
The effort to ban predator hunting on the preserve will probably have a negative impact on tortoises because a number of studies have show that coyotes and grey foxes are the only predators that target older tortoises, not needing to break open the shells to kill and eat the reptile. By stopping the hunting of these animals, their populations will increase and even more mature tortoises will be eaten.
Some other things puzzle me.
If these issues were so critical to the survival of the tortoise, why didn't the petitioners ask the Commission to ban hunting in all the desert tortoise range? Why didn't they ask the National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management to close all roads and ban OHV use on public lands from February through September when tortoises are most active above ground? Why didn't they ask for caps on visitation to be set during these periods to reduce trash to keep raven numbers in check?
They didn't do any of these things. They targeted hunters.
The petition was filed with the Fish and Game Commission on Nov. 19 by the Center for Biological Diversity, in conjunction with the California/Nevada Desert Subcommittee of the Sierra Club, the National Parks and Conservation Association, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), the Desert Tortoise Council, and Defenders of Wildlife. That same day, management staff in the DFG offices in Sacramento were told they would be sued if the Commission didn't approve their petition.
The petition is certainly not about protecting tortoises because there are far more important issues that could and should be addressed than any hunter-caused mortality.
This is an anti-hunting petition, pure and simple. If the groups involved were concerned about tortoises they would be working diligently to get the federal government to allow the "take" or killing or ravens, which have increased more than 1,000 percent in our deserts
What can be said with absolutely certainty is that hunting today in the Mojave National Preserve is not a factor in any downward tortoise population trend.
