"The gopher tortoise became a threatened species in Florida in 2007. Before that, developers could legally entomb them in their burrows, leaving them to starve to death over as much as a month’s time or suffocate in the dark.
In 2005, the Walmart in Lake Park paid $11,409 for a permit that allowed it to bury five tortoises alive. FWC records show as many as 105,000 so-called “incidental take permits” were granted statewide since the mid-1990s with fees totaling an estimated $82 million."