BARSTOW, CA — The Bureau of Land Management’s order for seven ranchers to seasonally remove their cattle from approximately 500,000 acres of desert tortoise habitat beginning Sept. 7 is asking the impossible, a witness testified in a Department of the Interior administrative court on Monday.

Speaking from a witness stand inside council chambers at Barstow City Hall, retired range ecologist and independent consultant Dr. Wayne Burkhardt testified that cattle tend to roam.

“I can see no way it will be possible to keep the exclusion areas free of cattle,” he said. “You won’t get them all. You can’t get them all.”

In January the BLM settled a lawsuit filed by the Center for Biological Diversity 16 months ago. The suit charged the BLM with failing to protect threatened desert species, such as the desert tortoise. As part of the settlement, the BLM agreed to order seven ranchers to remove their cattle from certain areas of the desert each year between March 1 and June 15, and from Sept. 7 to Nov. 7.

The ranchers are appealing the settlement, which they say will drive them out of business.

The BLM’s case is centered around the premise that cattle trample plants crucial to the tortoise’s survival, a claim the cattle contingent says is unfounded.

Burkhardt also testified that the exclusion order would likely increase the amount of off-road vehicles in the desert, which are even better at crushing tortoise food than the cattle.

The ranchers would be driving around chasing wayward cattle in order to avoid BLM fines, and the BLM officials would be driving around chasing the ranchers, he said.

Tim Salt, manager of the BLM’s California Desert District, later took the stand and was cross-examined by ranching attorney Karen Budd Falen.

Falen slogged through hours of dry testimony mostly centered around an April environmental assessment statement compiled by the BLM and signed by Salt, regarding the specifications of the out-of-court settlement agreement. Salt said he understood the report was “flexible,” because while it mandates that the cattle be removed from a certain number of acres, it does not say where those acres must be located.

Salt testified that the report suffered from time constraints and was not as thorough as it could have been.

“We don’t have the luxury of certainty of science,” said Salt. “We have to take the science that’s available for practical application.”

Salt also testified that the BLM has no authority to compensate the affected ranchers in any way.

Testimony is expected to continue through Friday. Administrative Law Judge Harvey C. Sweitzer is expected to render a decision by Aug. 24.