I don't want to argue with you jabber, but this is what I found. The turtles that were killed were at a conservancy and were too old or too ill to be released back into the wild; the rest were released. The Bureau of Land Management is responsible for the administration of much of the land in Nevada, and in much of the West. The land in question is Federal land, and the desert tortoise is endangered everywhere, not just in Nevada.

What scares me the most about this whole thing is all the heavily armed people (estimates say about 1,000) that showed up from all over the country to 'defend' the rancher. The BLM has backed down for now for safety reasons. Some of those who showed up are advocating overthrowing the government, and that's the scariest of all.