Marines Relocate Desert Tortoises
By Marine Corps Cpl. Medina Ayala-Lo Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center Twentynine Palms
MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif., April 14, 2017 — The southern Mojave Desert is known by most as a serene landscape, freckled with lizards, coyotes, jack rabbits as well as a cornucopia of other wildlife and desert vegetation.
But starting April 8, 2017, the landscape was temporarily adorned with trucks, biologists and a helicopter all in support of one being: the desert tortoise.
The translocation, in accordance with a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service-signed biological opinion, serves as a negotiated mitigation to support the mandated land expansion, which will enable the installation to conduct large-scale exercise training with up to a Marine Expeditionary Brigade-sized force.
https://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/1152478/marines-relocate-desert-tortoises/
