Venice, Florida – Walk the Venetian Waterway Park trail and you'll see bikers, joggers, even boaters. But if you look closely, you'll also see gopher tortoises. In fact, the land along the trial is home to more than 100 of the animals, and it's considered the largest concentration of gopher tortoises in Southwest Florida.

But environmentalists are worried the land could soon be developed. The city is considering a variety of plans for the area, including a marina.

Becky Zremski, Gopher Tortoise Advocate:

“The reason we don't want to lose them (the tortoises) is because they don't start reproducing until they are like, 18 to 25 years old. So if you start losing some of the adults, it's just too hard to get back that population."

City leaders say that developing the land along the Venetian Waterway Park is not “a done deal.” But a group of residents is still preparing for a fight to save the tortoises. They are now working with the Sierra Club to block any future plans for the area.

Sue Lang, President of the Venice Neighborhoods Coalition:

“If people aren't the voice for the environment, who's going to speak up?”

Of the 23 species of tortoises known to have existed on this continent, only four remain. And the gopher tortoise is the only tortoise found east of the Mississippi River. The status of the gopher tortoise was also recently changed from "species of concern" to "threatened."