A rescued gopher tortoise arrived at the Nokuse Nature Preserve in Florida’s Panhandle while my sister Erica and I were there. It didn’t know how lucky it was. Across Florida, builders are required to obtain permits from the state to capture and relocate gopher tortoises found on development sites. It’s a system meant to save them — but does it? Without federal protection for the species across its range, conservationists might be only moving the problem, not solving it.

Gopher tortoises’ only federal protections exist in small parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and western Alabama, where they are listed as threatened. Throughout the rest of their range, which includes Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, gopher tortoises are state-protected. Range-wide federal protection under the Endangere

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