I have never seen a tortoise in the wild. I live in Maryland and we only have the box turtle and water turtles. There are some areas where the woods are full of box turtles.Aligator snapping turtles always used to come into my grandparents yard and they are probably the biggest turtles that I have seen.
My mom's Apple Valley backyard has been a desert tortoise stomping ground since before I was born, after she took in an adult female that had been surrendered to the BLM (she's a former NPS employee and current BLM employee). In addition, my father used to work as a seasonal naturalist at the Desert Tortoise Research Natural Area near California City when I was a kid, and I've visited there a few times since then. I've grown up with these hardy reptiles, and I've even used them as the subject of a few college assignments/projects as I work toward a BA in Environmental Studies. Hope we can help them survive current and future challenges like climate change and subsidized predation!
Then you know it's a big no-no to reintroduce a pet desert tortoise back into the wild. They can carry lung infections into the wild and kill lots of stressed wild tortoises. You can't tell just by looking or weighing one to now if they're a carrier. Your parents are very wrong.
Could we not add watering stations throughout Joshua tree I live in Palm Desert I’ve seen that they do that in the Sahara desert in their national parks for their animals like a watering hole and they fill up the tank when needed. They also put a camera on it so they can see what wildlife uses it.
I live in Little Rock Arkansas and recently came across a desert tortoise who became a family member...I'm not sure how he got here...Maybe the tornado we had here on 3/31 brought him here from somewhere else but he is an amazing creature
The ongoing drought is a biggie. Grasses are the vast majority of their diet. 24 straight years of ongoing drought that wipes out the majority of their grazing grasses? Vicious!
I love tortoises, but i have only seen 1 in the wild. I read that 30 years ago eagles started picking up desert tortoises and dropping them from hight to smash them so they can eat them. Is this true?
Why not have them breed like crazy in captivity with these officials and release them into the wild? Also Increase the population with certified breeders. Maybe the pet trade might help with increasing their population? Or is there a high risk with the respiratory infection? Sucks wish they were thriving. Just seeing so many sulcatas and other foreign tortoises thriving in captivity makes you wonder about these rules.
It sounds like we need to get a mating program to help get their numbers up so they don't go extincted or build a man made haditat , these are just ideas
