Moving tortoises

The Marine Corps is looking for alternative plans to move tortoises from training grounds at the service's Air Ground Combat Center, Twentynine Palms, CA.

In a notice issued in this morning's Federal Register, the Marine Corps states a supplemental environmental impact statement "is being prepared to evaluate new information relevant to environmental concerns associated with translocation of tortoises from specific training areas on newly acquired lands. Translocation was deemed necessary to mitigate the moderate to high levels of impact on the tortoise population from the Marine Expeditionary Brigade training activities assessed in the 2012 Final EIS." It adds:

Since the 2012 Final EIS, the Marine Corps has conducted additional detailed studies and worked cooperatively with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on alternative translocation plans for the desert tortoise, as required in a 2012 Biological Opinion (BO) issued by the USFWS. In light of new information gained from these efforts, the [Navy Department] has elected to prepare a Supplemental EIS focusing on the evaluation of potential impacts from alternative tortoise translocation plans.

The purpose of the proposed action evaluated in the Supplemental EIS is to study alternative translocation plans in support of the project that was described in the 2012 Final EIS, selected in the 2013 Record of Decision (ROD) (78 FR 11632), and authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014.