Rare Tortoise Puts Brakes on High-speed Train Link

France's last colony of a rare and protected breed of tortoise may force the route of a high-speed TGV train line to be altered.

The number of Hermann's tortoises in the Var region has slumped from more than 80,000 a decade ago to 35,000, hit by forest fires and urban expansion. Now they are threatened by a proposed extension of the 186mph TGV Côte d'Azur line from Marseille to Toulon and Nice.

"It will be a catastrophe," Bernard Devaux, of the tortoise protection group Soptom, told the daily Libération yesterday. "We will be destroying their habitat and cutting their territory in half."