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States Makes It Easier To Relocate Gopher Tortoise

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Aug 18, 2006 9:49 am US/Eastern

States Makes It Easier To Relocate Gopher Tortoise

WEST PALM BEACH (CBS4/AP) ― Gopher tortoises have won a reprieve this week with the approval of changes to state policy that allows developers to bury the reptiles alive during construction.

The director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved the change that will no longer require mandatory testing for respiratory diseases in the tortoises before developers are allowed to relocate them.

Under the previous policy, anyone wishing to build on property where the tortoises lived were required to first test them for the respiratory illness before relocating them elsewhere. A positive test meant the tortoise could only be relocated on the same site or would be buried alive under the construction project through a state permit.

The new rules ease the restrictions and allow developers to relocate more tortoises. Even so, the permitting process still allows for some entombment.

State wildlife officials said the testing policy was ineffective and only served to limit options for relocating the animals.

(© 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

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