06/17/2026
Exerpt from a Post by Pete Mannina, FWC Gopher Tortoise Expert:
"I do love seeing an uproar of the corruption of FWC Commissioners, but give the City of North Port a break. I’ve worked with many different municipalities, and North Port is, by far, the strictest when it comes to GTs (Gopher Tortoises) or anything environmentally related. It is annoying on my end as a consultant, so you know it’s good for the environment. Their Natural Resources group really is a massive PITA for developers. "
Below is his post in its entirety:
People of North Port,
It is very evident that you all care about gopher tortoises. I would like to clarify some things so you all are informed about the process.
A little background about me. I am 36, a husband, a dad, a Sarasota native, a combat veteran, an environmentalist, a hippie, a redneck, and the Senior Ecologist for an engineering firm based out of Sarasota. I am the FWC Authorized Gopher Tortoise Agent (GTA-22-00122A) that surveyed, permitted, and relocated the tortoises on a certain parcel that apartments are going to be built on.
I am posting this as a fellow concerned environmentalist and do not post on behalf of my client nor company.
Let’s get into it. I’ll keep it fairly short but give all of you the resources you need to do your own citizen sleuthing.
Getting to the nitty gritty, and all of you aren’t going to like this, you are not going to stop development. There’s a reason we all live here and it’s because it’s amazing. Stop thinking that the answer is to stop, it’s not going to. Be realistic about it.
What we can do is help mitigate those impacts on the environment. And the absolute best way to do that is through citizen reporting, while being informed.
We have to follow a very strict set of guidelines while doing everything gopher tortoise (GT) related. Enter the FWC Gopher Tortoise Permitting Guidelines (Guidelines)
https://myfwc.com/media/11854/gt-permitting-guidelines.pdf
Again, for brevity, I’ll shorten this but all the information you need is in that url above. We have to identify GT habitat, survey 100% by pedestrian or ATV transects, identify every single burrow, permit through FWC to obtain a relocation permit, and then excavate and relocate the GTs.
In order to be able to permit the relocations, we have to prove through education or field experience under an authorized agent, that we are proficient at all the above related tasks.
The guidelines for the recipient sites that these GTs are relocated to are so strict that it is shocking there are any at all. The habitat has to be perfect for FWC to allow it to become a recipient site. It is to a point of unbelievably strict but to the benefit of the GTs. The Guidelines detail everything involved.
I do love seeing an uproar of the corruption of FWC Commissioners but give the City of North Port a break. I’ve worked with many different municipalities and North Port is, by far, the strictest when it comes to GTs, or anything environmentally related. It is annoying on my end as a consultant, so you know it’s good for the environment. Their Natural Resources group really is a massive PITA for developers.
Here are a couple more resources for everyone to use to know if projects are kosher or not. It’s all public information.
This website will let you search all GT permits in the state. You can find any permit ever issued on this map, from completed to active. This can let you know if the Guidelines were followed or not.
https://app.myfwc.com/maps/gtmapping/gtpermitmap.html
The permit map will give you good starting information but if you really want to nerd out, you can make an account on FWCs Online Permitting System and search any permit number you find on the map.
https://app.myfwc.com/crossdoi/permitsystem/
On a personal note, people don’t get into the business of relocating tortoises unless they freaking love them. We are very careful to relocate them with the machines. We are generally more than happy to let you observe a relocation, which would certainly ease all of your minds. It is all about how you approach us. Hostility will be met with hostility. It is all about that first interaction whether you get Pete the hippie redneck tortoise lover or Pete the a hole that told me to just go search it online.
I consider myself very well-versed in the world of GTs and navigating the permitting process. I would love to give a free presentation on the entire process if you all get together and schedule it. I doubt many of you made it this far but hopefully it gets traction because a presentation would really help you all understand everything.
Any one of you are welcome to email me and ask anything you’d like. I will get back to you, it might not be the same day but it will happen. My email is [email protected]
