Manatee County is doing its part to save the gopher tortoise with a new relocation program aimed at protection and in hopes of increasing their population. The gopher tortoise is federally listed as ...

Florida conservationists said they were blindsided by an executive order last month that allows developers to relocate threatened gopher tortoises anywhere in the state. The order issued Nov. 18 was ...

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) -- Land management agencies would have to consider finding areas suitable for gopher tortoises that get pushed from their homes by development, under a measure sent to the ...

Gopher tortoises are known for their love of burrowing. But removing the protected creatures from their lengthy tunnels is costly as county officials recently learned. The removal was necessary to ...

Last week, the federal government denied protections to the gopher tortoise—a keystone species—east of the Mobile and Tombigbee rivers. Though this doesn’t change much for the gopher tortoise in ...

Environmental groups say they will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for failing to protect the gopher tortoise. Elise Bennett, Florida director of the Center for Biological Diversity, based in ...

TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) -- State wildlife officials defended an emergency order that expands how far threatened gopher tortoises can be relocated as booming development continues in Florida. But ...

“It was just peaceful and quiet. We loved the area. My aunt actually lives right next door,” she says. “And it would be within the same school district that our kids are in now.” The plan was simple: ...

Developers were quietly given another 60 days to skirt gopher tortoise protection rules as the state struggles to find viable land to relocate the beleaguered reptile amid a building boom.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.— The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has issued an executive order that weakens protections for tortoises displaced from development sites around the state and ...