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VALDOSTA DAILY TIMES (Georgia) 19 September 05 Project saves hundreds of threatened tortoises (Kenna Walsh)
Adel: Small enough to balance on your pinkie finger, a five-day-old baby gopher tortoise spends its waking hours nosing around a sand-filled box, burrowing away from outside elements.
The tortoise digs through sand with tiny shovel-like front legs, earning the “gopher” title and learning to keep safe from enemies like man, fire and raccoons.
Chet Powell, park ranger with Reed Bingham State Park, helped pioneer the park’s gopher tortoise project, which has helped save hundreds of baby gopher tortoises since 2002.
Powell, along with 40 volunteers, spends May through September observing tortoise habitat and looking for eggs to incubate and hatch in a safe environment.
In 2000, Powell and another park ranger noticed nest upon nest of gopher tortoises ravaged nightly by prey, including foxes, skunks and armadillos.
At an average of nine eggs per nest, 60 to 70 percent of yearly hatchlings were lost.
“What we found over the period of two nest seasons was if the gopher tortoise laid eggs during the day, on several occasions by the next day, the eggs had been dug up and eaten,” Powell said. “In one night we lost seven to eight nests.”
The tortoises habitat east of the Mississippi River and are considered protected in Georgia.
Joshua Hart, a senior and anthropology major at Valdosta State University, volunteered to help with the project in June and said the study interested him personally and helped to broaden his education.
“We went out to the gopher tortoise holes and found the eggs,” Hart said. “We’d post a flag with a number and write down the number of eggs in a hole.”
The data was recorded into a Global Positioning System map, which allowed rangers to release babies onto their original burrow and nest and keep track of population data.
Incubating the eggs preserves gopher tortoise lives, and Powell said the chances of young tortoise survival is high.
“The babies are released in front of their burrow and normally go ‘home,’ straight down into the hole,” Powell said.
Gopher tortoises remain hidden in their burrow most of the day, creeping out only for sunlight, food and to mate.
Reed Bingham’s gopher tortoise project looks at broader environmental concerns, like foliage and food supply.
Gopher tortoises feed on low-growing plants like wiregrass, broadleaf grasses and legumes. Other nutrition comes from apples, pawpaws and blackberries.
Powell feeds day-old tortoises bits of apples, turnip greens, squash and zucchinis sprinkled with vitamins. The mixture ensures proper nutrition and eases adaptation into the wild.
Tortoises need sunlight to survive, which dense foliage and trees can mask.
Powell said volunteers are working to clear the 10.2-acre gopher tortoise habitat of dense tree growth and are contributing to the Longleaf pine restoration project.
Project volunteer Susan Wing, a retired nurse and nature lover, spent the spring collecting eggs and watching the process unfold.
“It was quite a learning experience,” Wing said. “We went out and found burrows for the project. We’ll be planting wiregrass and (helping with) the Longleaf pines.”
Powell said the project hatched numerous babies this year, too many to count at this time.
The hatchlings occurred earlier this year than previous studies, a conundrum Powell and other project volunteers are currently exploring.
The babies are released when they’re about a week old and are free to roam around the park’s lands.
To see baby tortoises and their parents, take a walking tour of the restoration area at Reed Bingham State Park.
For park hours or information on how to volunteer with the gopher tortoise project, visit www.gastateparks.org and follow the links to Reed Bingham Park or call (229) 896-3551.
Park Ranger Chet Powell said park officials are working on a Christmas choral event, with local choirs and vocalists singing holiday tunes by a peaceful lake with floating lights.
Other improvements include adding more campsites and rebuilding concrete boat ramps throughout the park.
Powell said the park celebrates the anniversary year-round and will host various activities throughout the seasons.
Project saves hundreds of threatened tortoises

i love hearing about these little guys getting a helping hand. i live in north georgia, but if i were further south, i'd absolutely love to be able to volunteer for this. at the very least i'd like to take a day trip down there or something someday.

It good to hear some good inspiration!

.... I only post what is available on press. Tortoises tend to get good, if sometimes 'bitterseet' press coverage. (Unlike your friends in the croc, python and venom forums!)

Just be glad that your choses favourites are so darn cute and more-or-less harmless to society (When was the last time we saw a headline about 'Tortoises eats bus full of politicians!', eh?

Cheers and respects
Wes

Tortoise with Attitude?

GREAT story! I wish more people would take the time to do those kinds of things. I have 1.5 gopher tortoises (legally permitted) that I keep at school in Jacksonville, Florida. We have found 3 hatchlings so far in our enclosure and are VERY excited. We never witnessed egglaying, so we have no idea how many nests were made. I will probably keep them inside until the spring, and then put them outside in a smaller enclosure after I get a screen top made. Photos of ours can be seen on my herpetology club at school.

Thanks,
Mike Monlezun
Sandalwood High School
www.educationcentral.org/sandalwood/herpetology
Sandalwood Herpetology Club

to have gone to the high school you teach at! how lucky for your herp club members to have such a wonderful opportunity to observe and learn. nice website, too!