Rural acreage, pasture, and scrub-oak ridges — FWC-authorized tortoise services for DeSoto County, thirty minutes from our Port Charlotte base.
DeSoto County is ranch country — pasture, citrus, and pine flatwoods threaded with the sandy scrub-oak ridges gopher tortoises love. As Arcadia-area acreage gets split into ranchettes and homesites, and as ag land changes use, tortoise compliance is turning up on projects that never used to think about it.
The rule that catches rural owners off guard: agricultural land use doesn't exempt tortoise take. Ripping pasture, clearing an oak ridge for a barn, or cutting a new drive through scrub all trigger the same state protections as a subdivision build — no disturbance within 25 feet of a burrow without an FWC permit.
The good news for acreage owners: with land to spare, on-site relocation is usually feasible, keeping tortoises on the property and costs down. We're thirty minutes away via SR-70/US-17 and treat DeSoto as an extended service area.
Rural work, mostly — with rural advantages.
New homes on 5–20 acre splits east and north of Arcadia. Survey the building envelope and drive corridor, not necessarily the whole parcel.
Pasture rip, grove removal, or ridge clearing — the take prohibition applies regardless of zoning. Survey the work area first.
Structures sited on high sandy ground — exactly where the burrows are. A quick survey keeps the pad site legal.
Acreage due diligence: burrow density on a parcel affects both build cost and where the envelope can go.
DeSoto County building permits run through the county office in Arcadia, and the tortoise framework is the same statewide FWC rulebook (Rule 68A-27, F.A.C.). For large parcels we scope the survey to the actual disturbance area — building envelope, drive, and utility runs — which keeps survey costs proportional to the project rather than the acreage.
On-site relocation is the norm out here: most DeSoto parcels have qualifying habitat, so tortoises move to an undisturbed part of the same property and the $5,000-per-tortoise recipient-site fee never applies.
The same four steps everywhere we work — most clients only ever make one phone call.
Give us the property address and your timeline. We confirm whether a survey is needed and schedule within 48 hours.
We walk 100% of the parcel, GPS-map every burrow, and deliver an FWC-format written report the next business day.
If tortoises are present, we prepare and submit the FWC relocation permit application for you. Typical review: 2–6 weeks.
Once permitted, we capture and relocate the tortoises to an approved recipient area. You're legal to clear and build.
Same transparent pricing across our whole service area — no location markups.
| Gopher tortoise survey | $350 / quarter acre |
| Relocation (up to 2 tortoises, permit included) | $1,400 |
| Each additional tortoise | +$400 |
| Off-site recipient site fee (waterfront/canal lots — paid to the conservation site) | $5,000 / tortoise |
Full details, examples by lot size, and what's never included: see the pricing page.
Ranchette, barn pad, or ag conversion — tell us the parcel and we'll scope the survey to the actual work area.