The great basin institute (GBI) will work cooperatively with the U.S. Fish and wildlife service (USFWS) desert tortoise recovery office (dtro) to support surveys of mojave desert tortoise (gopherus…

The great basin institute (GBI) will work cooperatively with the U.S. Fish and wildlife service (USFWS) desert tortoise recovery office (dtro) to support surveys of mojave desert tortoise (gopherus agassizii) in the amargosa valley of southern nevada. This project is a partnership with the BLM pahrump field office to better understand desert tortoise distribution and population status in areas that may be impacted by future development. This information will help inform mitigation and permitting decisions.similar surveys have occurred across the range of the mojave desert tortoise for several years. Survey protocols will consist of line distance sampling along transects, supplemented by telemetry surveys to provide additional information on tortoise activity patterns. These data will be analyzed by USFWS to estimate population density. GBI has substantial prior experience implementing line distance sampling and telemetry monitoring for desert tortoises throughout southern nevada and neighboring states as part of the USFWS long-term range-wide monitoring program for this species, which will continue concurrently with the amargosa valley surveys. This not only allows for economy-of-scale cost savings for both survey efforts but also provides the opportunity for the amargosa valley data to be interpreted in the context of the long-term range-wide dataset, which uses the same survey protocol.