A federal judge has prohibited off-road vehicle use in critical habitat for desert tortoises in California’s western Mojave ...

The animals are also vulnerable to a range of deadly diseases such as upper respiratory illnesses and the shell disease cutaneous dyskeratosis, which softens their shells. Finally, as climate change ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. An iconic Southern California desert dweller ...

A desert tortoise in the Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area in California City in 2022. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times) The California Fish and Game Commission has formally recognized the Mojave ...

The California Fish and Game Commission has formally recognized the Mojave desert tortoise as endangered. The designation, granted Thursday, is the latest in a long series of steps to try to protect ...