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Most
major threats to the desert tortoise - land development,
livestock overgrazing, off-road vehicle recreation, poaching,
and pet collection - are direct results of humans and human
development. Historically, for example, popular demand for
pet desert tortoises took a toll on the species in the wild.
In the 1970s, Californians housed an estimated 200,000 pet
desert tortoises, perhaps ten times the number that remained
in the wild.
But captured tortoises, robbed of the chance to breed and
fulfill their ecological role, are effectively biologically
dead. They cannot help to perpetuate the species. Consequently,
until recent years, the taking of tortoises for pets was
a leading cause of the species' decline.
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