By JENNIFER BOWLES, The Press-Enterprise

Federal wildlife officials are proposing to expand by about 36,000 acres the amount of land they consider essential for the endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep to survive in the mountains above the Coachella Valley in California.

Coyotes have killed at least 11 desert tortoises recently moved to make way for Army tank training exercises north of Barstow, Calif.The problem coyotes, thought to be attacking tortoises because the drought has left fewer rabbits in its wake, will be tracked and possibly killed by a federal agency to help protect the tortoises -- a species threatened with extinction.

Biologists will begin gingerly removing 770 desert tortoises Saturday from land the Army wants to use for tank training in the San Bernardino County, Calif. desert. "Every tortoise has to go quickly and gently to its new location," Kenneth Nussear, a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said about the reptiles threatened with extinction.

An environmental group has served notice that it intends to sue over the Army's plan to move nearly 800 endangered desert tortoises to a less-than ideal habitat in California.The Center for Biological Diversity and Desert Survivors wants the reptiles to be settled in a more suitable area than the land where the Army is slated to transplant the tortoises soon.

Parts of California's Coachella Valley have sunk more than a foot in nine years because too much water is being pumped from the aquifer below, according to a report released by federal scienti