Developers in Vegas needed land, thousands and thousands of acres of it to build condos, townhomes, and shopping malls anchored in big box stores. Sometimes politics makes strange bedfellows.
Environmentalists like land restrictions. Enviros are anti development. If you thought they couldn't find common ground with developers you'd be wrong.
Someone needed to lose, someone needed to get screwed, other people needed to be bribed with lots of dollars. Developers had dollars, politicians had the power to screw people over, and environmentalists had the green stamp of approval.
So,,, 20,000 acres to developers. A brand spanking new desert tortoise conservation center with tons of jobs for wana be conservationists, (since closed down due to lack of funds due to real estate bust of 08) and best of all 800,000 acres of BLM allotments taken from ranchers, who weren't at the table, and therefore were dinner.
And so began what was to become a multi generational hate fest between one of those ranchers and the US govt. Subsequent studies show tortoises do well in habitat with domestic cows but that's another story.