ST. PETERSBURG TIMES (Florida) 11 June 07 Burrowing around for tortoises - Girls Scouts earn a special patch while learning about the species that's in decline. (Chandra Broadwater)
Brooksville: Tortoises are different than turtles.
Nine-year-old Ashley Gourlay didn't know that until Saturday, when she stood under a blue tarp looking up close at a small, baby gopher tortoise.
"It feels scaly," she said of the reptile's shell. "I didn't know it was a bone."
Ashley and other Girl Scouts from the area crunched through the woods at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Chinsegut Nature Center north of Brooksville on Saturday afternoon to learn all they could about gopher tortoises -- and to get a special patch.
With a $2,500 grant administered by the Girl Scouts, about 30 girls took part in the first-time event at the nature center. The goal, said Cindy Lackey of the Girl Scout Heart of Florida Council, was to inform the girls about the species, listed as one of special concern.
"They're not endangered, but their ecosystems are quickly disappearing because of development," Lackey said. "This shows them the importance of the gopher tortoise to the Florida ecosystem."
The grant also helped purchase several Global Positioning System units that the Scouts used to locate tortoise burrows. The GPS data collected will be used to track changes in the gopher tortoise population in the area over the next year.
More gopher tortoises are brought to Chinsegut each year as the state figures out where they can be relocated as subdivisions and other developments eat up their homes, said Geoff Brown, of the wildlife commission's recreation services.
"It's a real problem," Brown said to the group of girls. "So as you understand gopher tortoises more, educate your family and friends. People call here all the time and think that they might get hurt by the tortoises if there's a burrow in their yard.
"If there's one thing you take away, remember that we need a find a way to coexist with them," Brown said. "Let's face it, the gopher tortoise was here before man."
The Scouts also got the chance Saturday to crawl through a burrow -- two cardboard boxes painted green with plastic worms and bugs taped inside. They learned that the average burrow is about 30 feet long, and it twists and turns under the ground.
Some 300 species -- including snakes, birds, frogs and mice -- live with the tortoise and use their burrows for a home.
Inside, the herbivore might munch on some cactus flowers, nettles and saw grass. Sometimes they might even eat a few dead animal bones for calcium.
Ashley turned to troop mate 11-year-old Lindsay Dale when she recalled that fact. Together, they scrunched up their faces in the uncertainty of what eating a bone might be like.
"Eeww," Ashley said. "I don't know about that."
Burrowing around for tortoises