BREAKING NEWS: Major development in Bunkerville cattle battle

[arthurgoodwin]

136. Tortoises at 29 Palms - sometime in the 1980s

I was a Marine at 29 Palms when the desert tortoise preservation issue first came up there. The survey section I was in was tasked with gridding off several areas on the base so an environmentalist team could count the tortoises and various types of plants they ate in representative parcels on the base. The final report on their work was very surprising to everyone: there were far more tortoises on the base than anyone had expected. The report opined that this because there was more vegatation on the heavily disturbed military base for the tortoises to eat than there was in areas of undisturbed desert. This was because the southern california desert often forms a hard surface crust that rain just runs off from (not sinking into ground very well). And all the military vehicle traffic meant this crust got broken up a lot; meaning what rain fell tended to soak in instead of running off; and this translated into more vegatation for tortoises to eat.

Now of course, the VERY heavily disturbed areas tended to see fewer tortoises, but much of the base saw only occasional vehicular traffic: just enough to break up the crust to benefit the tortoises.