Dozens of desert tortoise sterilized

By Caroline Bleakley
KLAS-TV Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS -- It might seem odd the desert tortoise, an endangered species, needs population control, but that's what wildlife experts are recommending.

A two-day clinic to teach veterinarians how to sterilize tortoises ended Thursday.

Wildlife experts say so many people have had desert tortoises as pets, the population has gotten of out control. The belief is if they work to reduce the amount of captive desert tortoises, it will help the endangered ones in the wild.

"What's happened is we have an unusual situation where we have too many in a captive situation and people have numerous tortoises and they breed. These desert tortoises won't be able to breed anymore after these surgeries," said Mike Senn, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Veterinarians like Mary Lee are learning how to sterilize tortoises at two-day clinic.

"I'd say it's pretty urgent," Dr. Lee said.

She frequently sees desert tortoises at her Las Vegas clinic because so many are kept as pets. The problem is they breed easily in backyards. It's difficult to tell whether they're male or female until they're at least 10 years old, and they can live as long as 100 years.

"We have a large number of tortoises from one individual. It started with three tortoises about 20 years ago and when we checked two weeks ago, he had 54," Senn said.

Because of budget cuts, the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center is closing at the end of the year. That means when tortoises aren't wanted as pets anymore, there's no place for them to go.

Senn says says about 70 tortoises are being sterilized at the clinic, but homes have only been found for half of them and they can't be released into the wild because they may spread disease to other tortoises listed as endangered since 1989.

The clinic is aimed at ultimately reducing the number of captive tortoises.

"When we have to manage the captive populations, like when we had them going to the center, it was a very, very high cost," Senn said.

The two-day sterilization clinic cost about $35,000. The funding came from Clark County. It's money raised through fees paid by developers when they build on desert land.

Desert tortoise doing just fine

EDITORIAL

LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

The desert tortoise is so threatened, in such a fight for species survival, that it desperately needs birth control.

If you’ve read this page for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with the federal government’s absurd efforts to protect a reptile that doesn’t need protection. Tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of desert tortoises live in Las Vegas Valley backyards or in pens as pets. But federal law is concerned solely with species populations that live in the wild. So the fact that desert tortoises breed, thrive and actually fare better as pets is a problem in need of fixing.

As reported Wednesday by the Review-Journal’s Henry Brean, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is inviting veterinarians from across the West to come to Las Vegas to participate in a two-day tortoise sterilization clinic. The public will pay for experts to teach the latest snipping techniques.

Hey, at least federal officials are no longer focused on killing the creatures they say they’re trying to protect — at one point, they were ready to euthanize surplus tortoises at their conservation center. But a far more cost-effective approach would be to remove the thriving creatures from the threatened species list altogether. Consider this problem solved. Leave the tortoises alone, already.

Sterilization clinic set for endangered tortoise

Mojave Max roams the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center in Las Vegas in 2009. A clinic later this month seeks to sterilize desert tortoises to prevent rampant backyard breeding. (John Gurzinski/Las Vegas Review-Journal file)

By HENRY BREAN
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service officials will hold a clinic in Las Vegas later this month with an unusual goal in mind: curb the breeding of a federally protected species they are also trying to save.

The agency is inviting veterinarians from Nevada, Arizona, California and Utah to attend a first-ever desert tortoise sterilization clinic, a two-day event to teach new techniques that could help slow backyard breeding of the reptile.

Officials say the growing population of unwanted pet tortoises is a management problem, diverting resources from efforts to preserve the species in the wild.

Uncontrolled backyard breeding also threatens native populations because captive tortoises can carry diseases with them when they escape or are released illegally in the desert.

Nevada law allows just one pet tortoise per household, but the measure adopted last year grandfathered in those who already had more.

Sterilization is one way to bring the captive population under control, said Mike Senn, assistant field supervisor for the Fish & Wildlife Service in Nevada.

Senn said it can be “a really difficult issue” to explain to people, but it comes down to this: Simply breeding more tortoises won’t save the species in the long run if not enough is done to improve and protect natural habitat and address threats in the wild.

The clinic will be Aug. 27-28 at the Oquendo Center, a medical training and events venue off Eastern Avenue near McCarran International Airport. There, about a dozen veterinarians, most of them from Nevada, will receive hands-on training in new tortoise sterilization techniques from the experts who pioneered them: Dr. Jay Johnson of the Arizona Exotic Animal Hospital and two researchers from the University of Georgia, Dr. Stephen Divers and Dr. Laila Proenca, who used tortoises shipped from Nevada for their work.

Veterinarians trained at the clinic will be able to perform the procedures in their private practice and, Senn hopes, at future events where pet owners cab get their tortoises fixed for free — or at a reduced rate.

More than 50 tortoises will be sterilized during the clinic, and wildlife officials are seeking new post-op homes for the animals. The nonprofit Tortoise Group is handling the adoptions. Those wishing to adopt or learn more about tortoise ownership and care may do so through the organization’s website, tortoisegroup.org.

“The first-ever sterilized tortoises will be available for placement in early September, and we need about 50 good homes in Southern and Northern Nevada,” said Jim Cornall, executive director for the Tortoise Group.

Sterilizing tortoises was a complicated and invasive process, but Senn said new techniques are considered low-risk and effective.

“For the males it’s pretty straightforward” and can be done pretty much any time the animals are active, Cornall said. The work is “a bit more involved” for females and must be done when they are in breeding condition, generally in July and August.

Some of the tortoises to be operated on during the clinic came from a single crop of about 50 that were living in a local backyard until their primary caretaker died — exactly the sort of situation wildlife managers and tortoise rescue groups hope to avoid in the future.

Other patients will be provided by the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center, a 220-acre facility established 20 years ago at the valley’s southwestern edge as a place for developers to put the federally protected animals after removing them from job sites in booming Clark County.

The center is the valley’s de facto tortoise shelter, taking in as many as 1,000 unwanted tortoises each year and racking up about $1 million in costs that otherwise could have been spent on research and recovery work, Senn said.

The Desert Tortoise Conservation Center will close at the end of the year, when its funding runs out.