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CALIFORNIA NEWS
Marines protecting threatened desert tortoises
Posted: Nov 19, 2012 3:31 PM by Associated Press
TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (AP) - The Marine Corps is hoping to deploy some four-footed recruits in the Mojave Desert - about 500 threatened desert tortoises.
The Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/XVl4Z2 ) says the hatchlings live in a special 5-acre facility at the Twentynine Palms Marine Base that's protected from predators by wire and netting.
The slow-growing tortoises may need a year or more before they're big enough to be released into the desert.
The $100,000-a-year protection program began in 2006 under a partnership between the Marine Corps and UCLA.
The tortoise is threatened by development, off-road vehicles, disease and predators such as ravens. The Marines take their survival seriously. Every Marine training at Twentynine Palms gets a video lecture about the animals and troops are warned to halt training when a tortoise is spotted.
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