narrator: in the 1980s, biologists working in the southwestern deserts of the united states began finding something very disturbing-- the remains of young tortoises that had been attacked and eaten by ravens. man: ravens are like the ideal survivalists. woman: they're eating everything. second man: some raven n nests have been f found t to have the carcasses of hundreds of juvenile tortoises underneath. narrator: tortoises in the southwest have been under pressure for decades. much of their habitat has been damaged or destroyed. diseases, predators, and other factors have also taken their toll. third man: there have been massive declines--80%, 90%. woman: it's pretty ugly. it is.

narrator: tortoises were listed as a threatened species in april of 1990, and ravens are adding to this already complicated situation. food and water provided by humans have boosted raven populations, dramatically increasing attacks on tortoises. fourth man: you know, it's at the point where it's a tradeoff: is it the raven or is it the tortoise? narrator: in aesop's tale, the tortoise won by being slow and steady, but in today's race, after surviving millions of years, the tortoise is in peril. this young tortoise lives in the mohave desert in southern california. it will take 4 years for it to grow just to thisis size. it will be another 15 years

or more before it is fully an adult, able to reproduce. it has about a 2% chance of making it. the environment it lives in is challenging, and there are numerous threats, both natural and man-made. today many tortoises live in preserves. this one in the western mohave has been studied for decades. it once supported 350 tortoises per square mile. kristin berry: now we have about 30 per square mile inside the fence and much lower numbers outside the fence. jejeff lovich: tortoisee populations are declining for a multitude of reasons: habitat destruction, frfragmentation; mortality on roads. disease is contributing to the decline of some populations. so it's really what's been described as death by a thousand cuts. and it really makes conservation efforts s difficult because you have so many things to deal with. christine mullen: so you look

at tortoises, and you don't think that they're--you know, that they look very vulnerable. you know, they have this hard shell, and they're kind of gnarly-looking. and you know that they're really ancient and they'vve been around for a lolog time. but, man, they're just-- they're hanging on, you know, by the skin of their teeth all the time. narrator: in the past few decades, ravens have become one of the issues affecting the tortoise. berry: this little tortoise is about 6 to 8 years old. and we see that it's got a big hole in its back. lovich: ravens tend to peck through the shehell of small tortoises and then eviscerate them. and we do know that the raven is an important predator on young tortoises in some parts of the desert. narrator: ravens have become a pest worldwide largely because they've learned to get what they need from people. man: batter up. that's one away. narrator: this softball game might seem like an unusual place to find raravensbubut these bibs aren't just casual sports fans.. they've figured out an important equation: a ball game means people and people mean food.

once the game is over, they'll move in to pick over whatever has been left behind. lovich: ravens are like coyotes and raccoons and some other species known as subsidized predators to biologiststs. these are animals that do very y welln the presence of huhumans and human development. narrator: intelligent and highly adaptable, they've learned to find whatever they need in parks, playgrounds, and other areas frequented by humans. the scraps and trash thatat peoe leave behind can be a bounty for hungry birds. but, historically, their numbers were kept toto a mminimum in most desert areas. the open desert cannot support a large population of ravevens, and survival can be a constant challengnge. food anand water ae scarce, and finding them is a fufull-time job. b but thankno man, that is changing. man: the raven is a very widespread bird in north america and has always been present in

low numbers, even in the deserts. and what's happened lately is thahat human incucurss into t the desert have brought additional food and water. and their densities have increased as a result of those extra resources. [ravens squawking] narrator: whether picking up crumbs at a highway rest stop or dumpster d diving behind a restaurant, ravens have come to associate people with food and water. william boarman: there is somewhere between 2 and 15 times the number of ravens at important resource sites, like landfills, sewage ponds, and towns, compared to the open d desert. narrator: now there are so many more ravens that they have moved aggressively into areas that were mostly off-limits. and there they are disrupting the ecosystem. there are 4 major deserts in north america. in the united states, the mohave and the sonoran deserts are

tortoise habitat. there is evidence that native americans have been living in these deserts for at least 10,000 years with relatively little impact. the famed photographer edward curtis photographed the mohave tribe as part of his study of native americans. but the mohave and sonoran deserts remained sparsely settled by europeans. difficult terrain, heat, and lack of water kept most settlers at bay. and while a few hardy adventurers were exploring the desert, it wasn't until the discovery of gold in the 1850s that people began moving to the desert in any number. but the number of permanent settlers still remained low, kept out by the daunting task of surviving in such an inhospitable region. at its best, the desert can be a place of great beauty.

people are attracted by the wide-open spaces, unusual geology, wildlife, and unique plants. the plants and animals that live here have adapted to survive in harsh conditions. summer temperatures can reach to over 130 degrees fahrenheit and drop well below freezing in the winter. and then whwhen peoe show up, thecan compound the problems for themselves and for the environment. as a resusult, the creatures that live here have been under increasing pressure for decades. and few have suffered more than the deserert tortoise. mann: tortoises respond toto fluctuating availability of resources out in the desert. and they have a pretty good system for waiting it out in

the really bad years. and then the young actually probably make it in the really good yearsrs, which happen maybe once every 7 or 10 years--something like that--if we're lucky. mullen: i mean, it doesn't take much in that kind of an environment to push them over the edge. and then here we come along. and inadvertently, we just really, you know, shake them up. narrator: in the past several decades, the desert has undergone profofound changes tht are affecting wildlife, including the tortoise, in dramatic ways. todd esque: not very long ago-- just a few decades ago-- the desert was a very large sort of wilderness area. and now we've succeeded in--with our utility corridors and our trtransportatation corridors, we've sliced up the areas

for the animals to live in into smaller and smaller pieces. narrator: today, more and more people are pushing further and further into the desert in search of affordable housing. in the past 50 years, the population of las vegegas hs growown from 14040,000 to roughy 2 million. near los angeles, the offer of low-cost housing has boosted populations in some desert communities by 30% in just 20 years. recreational use of the desert has increased also. and with shifting energy priorities, new political pressures have emerged. each new incursion affects the environment. and today, the pressure to adapt the desert for a variety of uses is mounting. nussear: we're slicing things thinner and thinner. the tortoise is not a--they don't rebound quickly from disasters to populations. so if disease comes through and knocks out a population, it takekes decades-ayaybe more

than that--for them to come back. and so it's not an extremely rapidly responsive animal to change. and we've kind of lessened its ability to do so. mullen: everything they do is slow. they don't sexually mature until they're, you know, 1414 to 20 yearars old. so theye to survive a long time, almost 15 years, as a baby tortoise-- and, you know, they're l little- you know, in a harsh environment before they can even reproduce. narrator: ironically, the very conditions that are detrimental to the tortoise are beneficial to the raven. normally, terrain like this would be much too hostile for a raven, and survival would be difficult if it weren't for things like this. the i-15 runs straight through

the desert. on average, about 40,000 vehicles use this highway each day. that's more than 14 million vehicles each year. nussear: from las vegas, we have the town of primm. and then we go to a rest area, and then we reach baker, and then we go to a rest area. then we reach the town of barstow, and then we go to a rest area. then we reach the town of victorville. and so even though that's a barren desert, we've created a linkage all the way along i-15 of resources that they can capitalize on. narrator: the town of baker lies on the i-15 corridor. baker is famous for having the world's tallest thermometer, erected to commemorate the world record temperature of 134 degrees fahrenheit set in death valley in 1913. but for biologists, baker is increasingly famous for something else--ravens.

the area around baker is flat and barren. it would never support a large population of ravens. the town itself has fewer than 800 residents, but thousands of people stop in baker to refuel both their vehicles and themselves. and that's where the trouble starts. mullen: they've got these great, you know, fast-food restaurants, and they've g got dumpsters and all kinds of things that, you know, ravens thrive on. narrator: truckers and travelers routinely leave food remnants for the birds, and they are quick to take full advantage. inquisitive and highly intelligigent, ravens have leard to recognize anything that looks like it might be a meal. as an experiment, we left an empty to-go container in an area frequented by ravenens.

[bell dings] it took less than 11 seconds for the first bird to show up. had there been food in the container, it would have ignited a feeding frenzy in no time. rest areas arare even more remo, often with nothing else in the area. this one is busy on a 3-day weekend. and even here, ravens are waiting, looking for any scrap that might make a meal. the pickings are easy enough, but they don't have to settle for mere crumbs. too much trash creates a cornucopia of opportunity, and the ravens take charge in short order.

we also provide them with water. in the desert, rainfall is scarce, on average about 10 inches per year. and in any given year, parts of the desert may receive only one or two inches of rainfall or none at all. even rain from a flash flood disappears quickly, draining into the porous soil or evaporating in the desert sun. a spring like this could support hundreds, even thousands, of animals, but they're few and far between. so once again, man has come to the rescue. carelessness with our resources aids the raven, but it's not carelessness alone. it's not uncommon for people to deliberately provide food and water. this footage caught on a smartphone by a passing biologist shows an employee

dumping garbage behind a restaurant. no doubt, he thinks he's helping the birds. nussesear: being in the desert, i think a a lot of people think, "wow. anything ouout here must e hungngry or must be thirsty, and so i'll help it by feeding it." and what that actually does is create the situation where we have more animals than, really, the landscape itself could support. it does create a situation that sort of escalates. narrator: the desert is now dotted with thousands of opportunities toto find fofood and water. and at every one of them, ravavens are wawaiting: way stations, restaurants, feedlots, recycling yards, landfills, even road kill on highways, just about any place people are careless with food and water. nussear: and we see some of those things even with linear features, such as power lines, where nest sites are now supported, all throughout the desert, where in a lowland landscape with just shrubs like you see around here, there

aren''t realllly nesting opportununities. and so what w'e creating is additional resources that allow them to get further into the desert than normal. narrator: almost any structure can be utilized for a nest. natural sites are being supplanted by man-made sites across the desert, increasing reproductive success rates. just two surviving chicks from a clutch of eggs means that the nesting pair has at a minimum replaced itself in just one season. these chicks will be sexually mature in 3-5 years and may breed for several years. so with each new generation, there is a steady population increase. and it's not just nesting sites that we provide. many nests include man-made materials--cloth, rope, wire, and other items picked up in towns and landfills. and furniture dumped in the open can provide stuffing material used to line nests. with plenty ofof food and water nearby,

the number of chicks that survive increases dramatically, up to 8 times normal. this combination of food, water, and nest sites has allowed raven populations to increase by 1,000% or more and create new colonies in some parts of the desert. nussear: and because they have all of those extra young to feed, they've been branching out into other kinds of food resources, and some of them learn to eat animals that we care about and are trying to conserve, such as desert tortoises. esque: so ravens learn that tortoises are--especially the small ones are a good diet, easy to catch, easy to carry. so they teach their young to eat them by feeding them to them. and each newew generatation cres more ravens that likeke to eat tortoises. mullen: when you see the body and you see what a raven's done to it, you know, or you see a little pile of hatchling carcasses, you know, it's... you know, we don't...that hurts.

narrator: and now ravens are attacking adult tortoises. esque: a few ravens have learned to kill adult tortoises. and so that's just a few individuals right now that are a problem, but each new brood that they are able to produce learns a little bit more from them. and then that's how we get t populations that change their behavior. mullen: so you get an adult tortoise that's finally at breeding age, that's a really valuable commodity: a breeding adult. and every one of those is precious to us now. so it's a different situation than it used to be. narrator: today numerous agencies are coordinating research into tortoise behavior and the relationship between the tortoise and its environment. lovich: this is a male, so it wouldn't surprise me that he made a spectacular movement.

narrator: this study is being conducted on a wind farm just outside of palm springs, california. tortoises spend much of their time in burrows and may use more than one burrorow. wowoman: the head of the tortoi. do you see the head? narrator: radio transmitters, harmless to the tortoise, are attached for tracking. this allows biologists to study their reproduction and behavior in an effort to better understand what the tortoise needs to survive. lovich: many of these tortoises have been recaptured repeatedly since 1997, so we know that our techniques aren't contributing to any kind of problems. narrator: this project includes taking x-rays, which allows biologists to study reproduction rates. lovich: finished. the typical clutch size here at this site is about 4 eggs. we've had some tortoises produce as many as 8 in a single clutch, and they can produce up to 12 eggs a year in 3 clutches. narrator: released back into

the wild, this female wilill ply a key role in helping understand tortoise reproduduction. man: there she goes. driver: how's that? woman: i think that's good. narrator: other reseaearch specifically tracks ravens in an effort to understand their behavior. woman: we go and take a gps point just directly underneath the nest, and i survey underneath the tower and look for any remains of juvenile tortoise carcasses, anything that might suggest tortoise predation. narrator: information such as raven nestingng and foraging hahabits is also collecteted for further study. other studies include ways to reestablish tortoises in the wild and include programs like this head-start facility on the marine corps base in 29 palms, california. brian henen: the head-start facility is part of our overall progrgram to manage and protect the tortoises that we have here at the marine corps base in 29 palms. the general concept is

we protect the eggs and the hatchlings until they grow enough until we can put them back in the wild. and at that time, they're large enough and their shell is hard enough where most predators, especially the ravens, cannot prey upon them. we monitor their reproductive status, and if they have eggggs, then we bring them into the facility and allow them to nest in the facility. ouour facility's actually in the middle o of their habitat. so there are natural conditions where they can lay their eggs and they can move around in their habitat at their own free will. we just bring them in temporarily so that they can lay their eggs and then they can move on. narrator: the projeje includess two captive females, thelma and louise. they enjoy some perks the other tortoises don't. brian henen: because it actually is a research project to decide whether or not we can head-start animals, protect those young, release them to the wild, and have those offspring help stabilize the population. we want to be able to do it now while--and we still have animals

that we can work with. if we wait until the last minute, it's either going to be too late and impossible or extremely expensive and arduous or difficult to do. narrator: today, geopolitical issues are placing new pressures on the desert, and the tortoise has become part of renewable energy planning. esque:e: it's s a difficulult balancing act, i thihink. can we build solar energy in the desert? yes, i think so, but let's put them in places that are smarter. lovich: there is broad support in the public for protecting wildlife, and there is broad support for clean, renewable energy. what we should be looking for are ways to maximize both, and i thinink with resear, we're going to be able to develop some recomommendations r land managers to consider for mitigating the effects of renewable energy development on the tortoise for the benefit of society and for the wildlife resource. narrator: today much is being done for the desert tortoise.

6.4 million acres in 4 states have been designated as critical habitat. the erection of an 18-inch tortoise-proof fence along highways has reduced tortoise road kill by up to 75%. and the use of raven-proof trash lids in public areas has reduced foraging. the desert tortoise recovery plan includes research into habitat restoration, behavior studies, habitat mapping, and laland usage studis that may allow for better integration of both wildlife and human needs. but the problem is ongoing, and issues with the tortoise are symptomatic of broader troubles in the desert. boarman: the increase in raven populations in the desert is the beginning of a vortex. their increase is a symbol of the desert being out of whack. berry: where are the lizards? where are the horny toads?

it's not just the tortoise. the tortoise is an indicator of what's going on with the rest of the ecosystem. it's a tragedy because i think we're going to have a hollow desert and we are not going to have the rich flora and fauna that this state once had. henen: across the world, whether it's turtles, tortoises, pandas, tigers, elephants--all of those, the main threat ultimately boils down to humans. narrator: in the southwest, the raven problem has gotten bad enougugh that t the government s now resorting g to the selective removal of some offending birds. boarman: they are going to raven nests, under which tortoise shelllls have been found, and y shoot those ravens soso that i's removing the problem ravens. that sort of approach can reduce pressure on tortoise populations, but it won't reduce raven population levels overall. narrator: the best long-term strategy for controlling ravens is to get t the public involved.

ravens are constantly on the lookout, so trash and water supplies need to be reduced. in public areas, trash cans without serviceable lids are easy pickings for ravens and other wildlife. if trash receptacles do not have a secure lid, trash should be removed for disposal elsewhere. trash cans used at home should also have a secure lid. plastic bags should not be set out in the open. ravens can easily peck through them. restaurants and other businesses need to make sure all trash is secure. an open trash receptacle, especially one with food, is irrrresistible to o ra. unauthorizezed dump sites shod not be created or useded. dripping, standing, or overflow water need to be controlled. pet food and water should not be left in the open where ravens or other wildlife can get to them. and food should never be deliberately put out for ravens. average people helped increase

the raven population, and average people can help reduce it. berry: we need to reduce this population to the point where ee toriseses c recovov and the juveniles and the immatures--the few that are being hatched now--can live to maturity and to breeding age and s size. mullen: nothing like this can be done just by, you know, a handful of scientists. we need everybody. esqque: because people really do care about t these animals. they designated the tortoise the statate reptile foror california. thatat's a pretty big deal. lovich: and d it would be incredibly sadd to see us lose such an iconic species that survives through the ages into the modern world. mullen: we all should feel responsible. and it's not just, "oh, yeah, this happens all the time. animals come. animals go." but we're creating this problem. and we can do something about it. we just have to wawant to. and i think most f

us want to. i i really do.

10/15/18 10/15/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacifica, this is democracy now! pres. trump: there is something really terrible and disgusting about that, if that were the case. where going to have to sesee. we are g going to the bottom of it. and there are or to be severe punishments. amy: joururnalist jamal khashogi entered the sasaudi arabiaian consulate in istanbul nearly two weeks ago and was never seen again. despite suspicion khashoggi was murdered inside, president trump says he still opposes ending billions in weapsa