Many of Cliven Bundy’s supporters in the Bunkerville showdown last weekend were saying things like, “It’s not about the tortoise,” and making the issue of long term trespass into a sign that the U.S. is headed towards fascism under a overreaching regime.
But, see, it kind of is about the tortoise. The threatened Mojave desert tortoise that has federally-designated habitat right where Mr. Bundy wanted to keep grazing. Grazing cows that imperil the tortoise. Just like Mr. Bundy’s cows’ ancestors did for many generations.
The Bunkerville allotment is in the Gold Butte area of southeastern Nevada. The Gold Butte area is designated as critical habitat. Critical habitat is land that scientists have determined is essential to a species continued existence. Essential. This means that without protection and sensitive land use, the species could go extinct. The desert tortoise has existed for about 50 million years. That’s quite a bit further back than the Mormon settlers occupied the lands along the Virgin River.
The conflict between cows and tortoises probably started right away, but the rest of the Mojave Desert was still wide open and desert tortoises had other places to live. As the desert filled in, with Las Vegas, with strip malls, with power lines and highways, the federal lands remained relatively protected from harmful development, but not from cows.
Cows like Mr. Bundy’s.
Cows trample young tortoises, damage and destroy tortoise burrows and shrubs used for shelter, cause soil compaction, decrease the diversity of vegetation, remove critical forage, and spread non-native grasses that crowd out the native vegetation that tortoises depend on. Cows compete with desert tortoises for the nutritionally superior plants. Cows spread weeds that result in the subsequent diminished food availability for desert tortoises. Weed composition also affects fire intervals and intensity, which affects tortoises through habitat conversion, destruction, and further weed spread, in addition to direct mortality (i.e. burned tortoises). Some of these weed seeds get impaled in tortoise jaws, causing infection and difficulty chewing.
Cows need water if they are going to roam around the desert, but artificial water developments threaten desert tortoise by attracting tortoise predators such as ravens, and by and increasing weedy species and decreasing the foods tortoise prefer. Poorly designed water developments can also trap tortoises and cause them to drown. Same for the grates in roads (“cattleguards”) that prevent livestock from crossing fencelines. Tortoises drop down into those grates and can’t get out.
And what about that oft-repeated anecdote about tortoises benefitting from cow flops? We call bullshit. We’re not saying it didn’t happen. We’re saying that it happened because the cows ate the food the tortoise would have preferred. If tortoises needed cow flops, they would’ve been long gone by the time the cows arrived in North America.
With any luck, and the cooperation of the American public, tortoises will be here long after the last cows are gone from western North America too.