Road mortality and other indirect road associated effects (road effects) threaten the continued survival and recovery of the Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii). Fortunately, well maintained exclusionary fencing paired with adequately spaced shade structures and tortoise underpasses has the potential to reduce habitat fragmentation and road mortality, as well as enable the repopulation of thousands of acres of density depleted roadside desert tortoise habitat. Unfortunately, cost and logistics prohibit efforts to fence all (55,312 km) or even most of the roadways that pose threats to recovery of the desert tortoise. To make this issue more manageable and to maximize returns on recovery efforts, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), in partnership with the Federal Highway Administration, including their respective state representatives, developed a GIS-based prioritization model, which incorporated a Recovery Importance Index (RII), a Feasibility Index (FI), and a composite Desert Tortoise Exclusionary Fence Installation Prioritization Index (DTEFIPI). The composite DTEFIPI (RII x FI) is intended to identify and prioritize 1-km segments of roads that most profoundly need fencing from both the biological need and feasibility perspective. In this approach, biological need (RII) is evaluated in terms of road-effect zone area, average habitat potential value, and number of overlapping buffered range-wide observations. Feasibility (FI) is evaluated in terms of landownership, road design (at grade or not), and number of local roads or driveways that would perforate the fence. The DTEFIPI is used to generate a map that identifies road segments according to color-coded priorities that can be used as a communication tool to inform funding and planning of transportation infrastructure projects that could include installation of fencing as mitigation. However, systematically collected road mortality data, along with a database of opportunistically collected observations of tortoise mortalities and live tortoises near or on roads was necessary to confirm the prioritization of road segments provided by the DTEFIPI. Therefore, we initiated a citizen science pilot project, titled "Road Warriors" in Southern Nevada, to document observations of tortoise road mortality, live tortoise encounters, carcasses, tortoise burrows, and tortoise sign on or near roads. We also developed a database of incidental observations of tortoise road encounters collected by the Nevada Department of Transportation. The combination of information provided by the DTEFIPI mapping, road mortality surveys, and the database will assist the USFWS in optimizing the efficiency of recovery efforts intended to minimize the negative effects of roadways on the desert tortoise and broader desert ecosystems.