Why is the desert tortoise endangered
Endangered Desert Tortoise - Tom Porter
well the desert tortoise is basically
california state reptile and this is a
species that again for the last twenty
thousand years has made a successful
living in the probably one of the
harshest places on the planet the Mojave
and Sonoran deserts and they do this by
living underground most of the year so
desert tortoise our herbivores they only
eat vegetation and there were widespread
throughout the California and deserts
but abound in the 70s we started seeing
their numbers plummet and desert
tortoises have a lifespan that's very
similar to humans and that they can live
to the close to a hundred of years old
in nature and takes them a long time to
actually get old enough to be able to
produce babies and so when we started
seeing the numbers precipitously decline
in the 1970s it was a real red flag that
there were major problems going on with
the desert tortoise I'd always love
turtles and tortoises as a kid and a
desert tortoise was basically one right
in my backyard because I grew up in
California so I would go out as a kid
and you can see them out in the Mojave
Desert walking around eating wild
flowers and to hear that they were the
numbers were crashing was very
concerning they're sort of a keystone
species for the desert and so that
suggests that there's something else
going on in the desert as well that was
problematic and compromising the whole
integrity of that he coats
so basically I got involved desert
tortoise than trying to make sure that
they get theirs again coming back to
habitat that there's enough habitat out
there for these animals to survive and
reproduce unfortunately for the desert
tortoise we're continuing to see
declines even though they're under
Endangered Species Act protection their
numbers are continuing to decline
throughout California and Nevada in
terms of grave concern there's a number
of reasons why the populations are
crashing part of the problem is because
their habitat is being converted into
other uses whether that be poorly cited
agricultural practices whether that be
offering vehicles running over tortoises
and burros whether that be roads just
fragmenting the landscape there's a
number of reasons people had had pet
tortoises and released them back into
the wild so with them they carried
series of diseases that the wild
tortoises weren't accustomed to
there's been die off because of diseases
it's basically gone for the western part
of the Mojave Desert and swept for the
whole population and that's caused a
major fool when you're having large
adult reproductively active tortoises
dying you're not getting any babies
another problem has been predation
predation by what we call subsidized
predators those are animals that do best
around humans and because additional
humans are living out in the desert and
being out there leaving their trash etc
it gives opportunities for these animals
to reach much higher levels of
populations than they would normally be
at so we have to be very mindful when we
go to these places to pick up our trash
not leave water out and available to
these to these very wily coyotes and
ravens and so that's been another part
of the problem and then just development
in in places where that our strongholds
of tortoise habitat is also venom
I helped the desert tortoise by trying
to conserve their habitat making sure
that intact landscapes stay intact in
areas where tortoises are currently
living and try to help restore other
areas so that tortoises have additional
habitat to move into a live successfully
reproduce so a lot of that involves
again looking at different projects that
are proposed on desert landscapes and
minimizing those impacts to tortoises
and their habitats I go into the desert
of frequently during the spring because
that's when tortoises are most active
most of the rest of the year they hang
out in their underground burrows and you
don't see them at all but during the
spring is when they're out and about
eating wild flowers that's their
preferred
and so certainly in my experience out in
the desert going out and looking for
tortoises I mean it's incredible that
these relatively large animals slow
moving out on the landscape are very
hard to find and they when you do see
them into you and see them only when
they're moving so it's always a thrill
for me to actually see a desert tortoise
moving across the landscape and it's
particularly rewarding when you go out
during the spring and the little baby
tortoises have just hatched out the
desert tortoise is still struggling in
California and Nevada deserts and we're
snell seeing a similar thing for the
populations in Arizona and numbers are
declining the species are not nearly as
common on the landscape as they were
even 30 years ago so there's definitely
problems for the desert tortoise out
there I think we need to put significant
investments in keeping areas where
desert tortoise are thriving free from
any stressors any developments and
keeping those tortoises in good shape so
that they will have an opportunity to
repopulate areas that currently their
numbers are declining in because of
their long lifespans this takes quite a
while to see any improvement in desert
tortoise reproductive capacity
one other thing I'd like to add about
desert tortoises is that there are a
number of desert tortoises that are in
captivity and being raised in captivity
and they do fairly well in people's
backyards as long as people recognize
that they're not going to be above
ground for most of the year they're
going to go underground one of the key
things though is to not take these
animals that have been raised in
captivity and putting them back onto the
landscape because they they have been
exposed to a variety of different
diseases that the wild populations have
it and so it's good to keep tortoises as
pets and keep them in the backyard so I
think it's imperative that we identify
these areas that we need to conserve
strictly for desert tortoise
conservation but by conserving desert
tortoises you also can serve the whole
web of life for the deserts in those
areas
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