FWC Requests Comments About Revised Management PlansThe second revised draft gopher tortoise conservation plan has been released for comment. IT IS IMPORTANT FOR PEOPLE TO COMMENT AGAIN. A PUBLIC HEARING IS SCHEDULED FOR MAY 24 IN GAINESVILLE. The 2000+ responses to the last FWC caused major changes to be made. We need a similar response again.
- We have won the battle on Incidental Take. Basically, we want it to all but go away by July 1, 2007.
- FWC must turn over the permitting to willing counties for the single family home (5 or fewer) permits. We lose more land and tortoises to this type of development than any others. The only way is to require a tortoise check by county folks before a clearing permit is granted. They will need to get a permit to relocate the tortoises to an available site.
- Relocation should be based on economic sustainability. The developers, counties, FWC and conservation groups and other agencies DOF and DEP should be involved to insure that funds are created to insure that lands are either purchased or under permanent conservation easement. Also the landowners should receive proper compensation for accepting tortoises. No funds should go to FWC unless they are going to do something like over see who is managing the relocations and issue permits. Funds should support proper management of county and state owned tortoise lands, not just the relocation but MONITORING AND RESPONSIVE MANAGEMENT.
- PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE THE RIGHT TO MANAGE community tortoises and have colonies of tortoises in their yards. This is part of a program that centers around different relocations and facilities with various levels called assurance colonies.
- All people involved with tortoise mitigation activities must have minimum training and experience to do various loan ds (See Ashton, 2007 Chelonian Newsletter.)
More about the FWC Management Plan:
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