Prosecution Rare On Gopher Tortoise Destruction

A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officer said she observed an active gopher tortoise burrow with bulldozer tread marks near it near the Sebring Wal-Mart as the property was being developed. A sign of a felony, she alleged late July, even though they're normally only filed as misdemeanors.

However, like every case considered by the FWC since 2004 in Highlands County, no charges have come up yet, if at all.

FWC spokesman Gary Morse said his office has attempted to pursue four cases since Sept. 10, 2007 where developers were accused of destroying or literally paving over gopher tortoise burrows. Out of those four, the FWC found no violations on three of them, while Officer Erika Zimmerman said the fourth one was corrected.

The recent case brought up by Zimmerman near the Sebring Wal-Mart was not included in Morse's totals, but this was turning out to be like 10 other cases where she would attempt to file charges. Since 2004, however, they were either rejected by the state attorney's office or returned to her for further evidence. Not a single one made it to court.

"Sometimes these cases get so involved," Zimmerman said. "They're very time consuming ... They get very complicated especially if it gets turned over to someone else."

The county's other FWC officer, Kristen Gavagni, said she never attempted to file charges on any developer in the 4.5 years she patrolled Highlands County, but that was because every violation she came across concerning gopher tortoises ended up getting corrected.

The lack of successful cases the FWC had in Highlands County is another frustration Zimmerman has had in the agency's efforts to protect the tortoise after it upgraded the tortoise's conservation status to "threatened" from "species of special concern." She also complained to the Natural Resources Advisory Commission in June about what she described as a loophole in the county law, which allowed developers to bypass any environmental clearance permit by clearing only two acres of their developments at a time.

Morse said the FWC is currently focusing on telling both the developers and the state attorney's offices all over the area what can and can't be done concerning tortoise burrows. As far as the cases, however, Morse acknowledged that Zimmerman had requested help, since "here to forth, she's been taking on these projects pretty much by herself."

If a development is caught and convicted of illegally displacing gopher tortoises, Morse said they would usually face a fine.