Action Picking Up at Tortoise Preserve.
Times Staff Writer RANDSBURG-Turtle lovers paid $60,000 for 2-1/4 square miles of undeveloped desert this week to set the land aside as a sanctuary for desert tortoises.
"This purchase signals the beginning of efforts by the Nature Conservancy and the Desert Tortoise Preserve Committee to acquire 16 square miles of privately held land for a desert tortoise refuge," explained Kristin Berry, zoologist for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
The privately held land is part of 38 square miles in Fremont Valley on the western slopes of the Rand Mountains recently designated as the Desert Tortoise Preserve.
None of the 38 square miles on the desert 125 miles northeast of Los Angeles is developed and 22 square miles of it is federally owned.
The BLM has spent $55,000 erecting a 3-foot-tall, 31-mile fence surrounding the preserve to protect the tortoises from being damaged and destroyed by motorcycles, jeeps, dune buggies and grazing livestock.
The fence was completed last month except for three one-mile-long gaps across private property where easement rights have not yet been obtained by the BLM. Money for the fence was appropriated by Congress.
There is a 10-inch opening on the bottom of the fence enabling freedom of movement for tortoises and other wildlife in the area.
Every 1/16th of a mile along the fence, signs proclaim:
"Desert Tortoise Natural Area. The area behind sign closed to all vehicle use to protect natural values.
"It is unlawful to take, sell, purchase, harm or shoot any projectile at a desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) Sec. 5000, California Fish and Game Code. Do not release captive (pet) tortoises."
It was Mrs. Berry of Ridgecrest who in 1971 first suggested establishing a sanctuary for the tortoises and fencing it off to protect the reptiles from people.
"During the past 40 years huge populations of the desert tortoise- California's official state reptile- have vanished from the Southern California desert," Mrs. Berry noted.
"Desert tortoises are disappearing at such rapid rates that steps are being taken to get the reptile classified as a threatened species."
Tens of thousands of the tortoises were scooped up by collectors in the 1950s and 1960s and sold in pet shops across the nation. More than 100,000 desert tortoises are said to be in
Remains of hundreds of desert tortoises crushed by motorcycles and off-road vehicles litter the desert floor.
In recent years a law was enacted imposing a $500 fine on anyone removing one of the wild creatures from the desert.
The 38 square miles of desert was selected as a sanctuary because it has the heaviest known concentration of desert tortoises in the country-nearly 8,000 of the turtles live within the fenced-off area.
