Biologists survey wildfire destruction on Utah tortoise habitat

St. George • After the Turkey Farm Road Fire fried nearly 12,000 acres north of St. George in mid-July, including large swaths of the Red Cliffs National Conservation Area that was set aside in 2009 as habitat for the threatened Mojave desert tortoise, biologists worried what they would find in its wake.Now, they’re setting out to survey the destruction. On a scorching day in late August, Mike Schijf, a biologist with the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, led a crew of volunteers out into a