I Give Them 3 months Before They Are All Dead

From the Pahrump Valley Times: A hand-picked group of 32 desert tortoises gave up life in captivity Wednesday to try their luck in the desert between Las Vegas and Pahrump.
But they won’t have to go it alone.
The federally protected reptiles were sent out into the world with radio transmitters glued to their shells so researchers can check in on them regularly.
And that wasn’t the only precious cargo the tortoises took with them.
Wednesday’s group of recent parolees included a number of carefully screened females that are either carrying eggs or about to produce some.
The release was part of continuing efforts to study the species and bolster its numbers in the wild.
This was one of the first batches of tortoises to be set free at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s newest so-called “translocation site”: a vast swath of creosote bushes and Joshua trees along the western slope of the Spring Mountains, between Trout Canyon Road and Lovell Canyon Road.
The animals came from the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center at the southern edge of the Las Vegas Valley.
“Most of them are probably former pets,” said Roy Averill-Murray, desert tortoise recovery coordinator for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Nevada and California.  http://pvtimes.com/news/32-desert-tortoises-released-near-trout-canyon/comment-page-1/#comment-36924
Since these are former pets, pets who used to be fed their food and you put them out into the wild with the coyotes, ravens and other predators, plus you have the federal government involved, these tortoises won't last much more than 3 months in the wild, but more than likely, 3 weeks.