The Mojave Desert Tortoise is listed by the federal government as a “threatened” species, which allows extreme environmentalists and their co-religionist government thugs to impose restrictions on land use by humans in Southern Nevada, supposedly to protect the tortoise’s delicate wild habitat.

Anyone not familiar with this particular exercise in lunacy might draw the conclusion that the tortoise prospers only in untouched arid desert, that upon sight of an approaching human or cow, let alone a human-generated dirt road or house or barn, the poor reptiles just roll over and shiver until they die of fright.

But anyone drawing that conclusion might be puzzled by the new Nevada state regulation set to take effect May 1, allowing owners of pet tortoises to keep only one such animal at a time.