Commission meeting news : 

News Release

Plum Creek Timber Company provides new home for 1,781 gopher tortoises

April 9, 2008
Contacts: (FWC) Henry Cabbage, 850-528-1755;
(Plum Creek) Heather Mikes, 239-898-0001

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) and Plum Creek Timber Company took a major step Wednesday to set up a new home for 1,781 gopher tortoises displaced by development.

A 570-acre site has been established within the Lochloosa Conservation Easement, near Orange Lake in Alachua County, for relocating tortoises. This site has been designated Unit 1.

“This new site is a pilot project to help us understand the logistics of providing desirable gopher tortoise habitat and implementation of the new FWC Gopher Tortoise Permitting Guidelines,” said Deborah Burr, Gopher Tortoise Plan coordinator.

These permitting guidelines were approved at the FWC’s meeting April 9. Plum Creek received the FWC’s first Recipient Site Permit for Unit 1 after the approval process. Rob Hicks, senior resource forester from Plum Creek, was presented with the permit during a ceremony at the meeting.

"We are excited to be working with the FWC team on this pilot program to help designate a safe environment for relocating gopher tortoises," said Hicks.  "Plum Creek has a history of creating these kinds of conservation agreements to provide for the long-term management and protection of wildlife habitat across the country." 

In 2007, the gopher tortoise management plan was approved by the FWC. Prior to July 2007, tortoises could be relocated to such sites, or incidental take of the tortoises was allowed under a permit issued to the developer. Under an interim permitting system, the controversial take permits were discontinued last July.

Since the plan was approved, numerous stakeholders have worked with the FWC to develop new and more-appropriate guidelines for management of the species and permit requirements, according to Burr.

The overall goal of the management plan is to restore and maintain secure, viable populations of gopher tortoises throughout the species’ current range in Florida.

“Objectives include improving gopher tortoise carrying capacity on lands with existing or potential gopher tortoise habitat; increasing the amount of protected gopher tortoise habitat; restocking gopher tortoises to protected and managed areas; and decreasing gopher tortoise mortality on lands proposed for development,” Burr said.

This permit system has been designed to help accomplish all four of these objectives by providing incentives to landowners to manage their habitat for gopher tortoises, animals that share habitats with tortoises, and other native wildlife species. 

“The plan also provides incentives to relocate and restock tortoises to protected, managed lands rather than unprotected sites,” Burr said. “The new permitting system requires that all gopher tortoises be relocated out of harm’s way, and the system provides for regulation and enforcement sufficient to ensure compliance with FWC guidelines and rules.”

According to Plum Creek officials, the company is working with the St. Johns River Water Management District to expand the gopher tortoise relocation site to include all 16,470 acres of the Lake Lochloosa Conservation Easement Area. That could allow for approximately 17,000 gopher tortoises to be relocated. There is no other site of this size in Central Florida. 

Plum Creek is the largest and most geographically diverse private landowner in the nation with more than 8 million acres of timberlands in the United States.  The company owns and manages more than 600,000 acres of forestland in 22 counties in Florida and is the second largest private landowner in the state.

Plum Creek is a leader in developing Habitat Conservation Plans (HCPs) – complex, long-term management plans directed at protecting key species but also protecting many other forest-dependent wildlife species. 

Nearly 2.7 million acres of company lands are involved in wildlife protection agreements throughout the country.