Readers React: Military hubris threatens desert tortoises

To the editor: We have been saving desert tortoises for 26 years and have seen their numbers drop precipitously. While everything about the translocation plan for more than 1,000 of these creatures to expand the Marine Corps’ Air Ground Combat Center near Twentynine Palms is disturbing, one item stuck out to us. (“The Marine Corps is planning a $50-million effort to help save desert tortoises. But will it work?” March 6)

Desert tortoises are hibernating now. Hibernation is an important part of a tortoise’s life, akin to recharging its batteries for the next round of survival.

When a wild tortoise is awakened early, scared or handled, it often urinates. Losing vital stored water during hibernation in a desert can lead to serious consequences or death.

This plan is doomed to fail like the many before it. Pray for the few tortoises that will survive.

Susan Tellem and Marshall Thompson, Malibu

The writers are founders of American Tortoise Rescue.

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To the editor: The Marines’ plan to relocate desert tortoises from prospective training grounds will “disrupt complex tortoise social networks and genetic lines linked for thousands of years by … trails, arroyos and hibernation burrows.” In plain language, humans want to practice violence, therefore innocent creatures will suffer and die.

Apparently the Marines think they can defy nature. They can’t.

Cheryl Kohr, Palos Verdes Estates

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