WEBVTT

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we're standing right in front of the yellow pine solar

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project, which is approved on land managed by the

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Bureau of Land Management. What they've built is a

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tortoise exclusion fence and they're going to be removing and

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have started removing all the mojave desert tortoises. And

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in the spring they trance located a lot of them

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onto the other side of the road. Yeah.

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Based on a range Watch are one of several conservation

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advocacy groups that are concerned about the fast development of

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solar projects in southern Nevada and its impact on native

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plants and animal species, especially when it comes to

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the federally threatened desert tortoise. This is a mitigation

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measure for the trans located tortoises that they took from

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here and moved over there when some of the tortoises

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and it always happens, try to get back to

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their home range and hit the tortoise exclusion fence.

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They'll pace back and forth and they will overheat because

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they are exposed to the sun. They don't have

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their burrows that they know. So these artificial shade

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structures are built to try to mitigate mortality. Uh

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and the tortoise can find shade here as it's trying

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to get back to its home range. But to

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us, this is like not a very good way

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to conserve tortoises there already declining across their range.

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And this to me, it just seems like a

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week method of, okay, well, we'll just

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try to stop the deaths instead of actually conserving this

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beautiful habitat which is full of tortoises and intact roughly

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139 tortoises in the project area or relocated to stump

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springs, which so happens to be across the road

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from the site. Unfortunately, 30 were predominantly killed

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off by badges within a span of five weeks.

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Post relocation Conservation groups believe that death could have been

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prevented by pushing relocation to the fall post monsoon season

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. As drought could have caused badges to eat tortoises

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rather than their typical prey. Yet state wildlife officials

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believe that predation is out of their control and can't

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be directly correlated to drought conditions. And the mojave

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desert is one of the most biodiverse an important habitats

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in North America. I mean it's got rare plants

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. I mean it has just almost like you could

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call it a canary in the coal mine. If

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we start seeing extinctions here, what does that mean

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for our human societies? So preserving as much of

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this intact healthy habitat as possible, I think should

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be a high priority when solar projects are developed over

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desert tortoise habitat. There are strict guidelines set in

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place by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife

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Service that developers must follow to mitigate threats mortality and

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won't proceed forward if it causes more harm to the

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tortoises. So the conversation continues on how we can

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balance the preservation of the biodiversity of the mojave desert

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, which is a non renewable resource for the development

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of renewable resources such as the Yellow Pine Solar Project

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, and future solar farms already fast track for development

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