News Release

For Release: January 23, 2006
Contact: Tracy Albrecht, 760 521-4800
(CDDNews 22)

Free Valentine's Day Courtship Lecture

Love is in the air, and this Valentine's Day, Bureau of Land Management Wildlife Biologist Mark Massar is speaking at the Palm Springs Public Library, 300 S. Sunrise Way, on the "Courtship of the Desert Tortoise," starting at 10 a.m.

This free romantic lecture with illustrated slides, sponsored by the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, is a summarization of a three-year study on desert tortoise courtship behaviors. The desert tortoise was listed as a federally threatened species in 1990, due to declining populations throughout its habitat. This romantic study was part of a larger social behavioral research program on the desert tortoise conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey.