Tampa, Know Your Tortoises

The Florida Aquarium’s e-newsletter recently ran this delightful photograph of Koko, a burrowing owl, riding on the back of a gopher tortoise. The species share the same habitat in the aquarium uplands display, but the photograph is as telling as it is cute. The lowly gopher tortoise carries a lot other creatures on its back – at least figuratively.

Scientists say the burrows gopher tortoises dig provide a home or refuge for more than 350 wildlife species, and it is considered a “keystone” species. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) calls it the “backbone of the plant and wildlife community in which it lives.”

Aquarium Associate Curator Eric Hovland explains that the tortoise can dig a burrow that is up to 10 feet deep and 40 feet long, providing a “a cool, safe place” for animals to avoid the heat and conserve water, which is critical to survival. The burrows also provide sanctuary from predators. Among the species that utilize the tortoise’s burrow are the burrowing owl, indigo snake, opossum, Florida mouse and gopher frog.

The rattlesnake sometimes also uses the holes, which can prove deadly for the tortoise – but not because the snake poses a threat. Sometimes snake haters try to kill rattlers by pouring gasoline down the holes, which can also kill the threatened tortoise and other protected species such as the indigo snake.

It is a cruel, destructive practice. Rattlers are not aggressive if left alone and help control populations of rodents and other critters that can become a nuisance. Beyond that, it is illegal in Florida to kill or harass gopher tortoises, a threatened species, or harm their burrows or their eggs.

Some people still treat the gentle reptile thoughtlessly. Hovland points out that not long ago there was a rash of tortoise “paintings.”  The culprits must have thought a colorful tortoise would look cute but Hovland says the practice damages the shell and blocks its absorption of sunlight.

I can remember decades ago local fairs holding gopher tortoise races, where entrants would prod the tortoises with sticks to make them move. The races are now banned.Also, people sometimes try to make pets of the docile animals, which is illegal and usually harmful.

In fact, Hovland says the two tortoises in The Aquarium’s display are “rescues” that FWC confiscated from people who were keeping them illegally.  Because tortoises had been fed only lettuce – instead of the diverse vegetation they would eat in the wild – and kept out of the sunlight, their growth was stunted, and they could not be released as would normally be done. Nonetheless, the two are likely to be around a long while.  Scientists say gopher tortoises can live up to 80 years in the wild and 100 years in captivity.

At one time, it was not uncommon for people to eat tortoises, which can weigh nine pounds and be 11 inches long or more. During the Great Depression, poor Floridians called them Hoover Chickens, because they offered an easily captured meal during those desperate times.

The biggest threat to the tortoise now is development, which is rapidly claiming its uplands habitat.  Florida does not prohibit the destruction of tortoise habitat but does requires developers to obtain a permit and relocate any tortoises found on the property to be bulldozed.

Beyond a development’s direct impact on the tortoise, it also usually leads to the suppression of fire necessary to maintain sandy pinelands on nearby lands. Residents who oppose controlled burns in nearby woods often don’t realize how preventing the fires dramatically changes the ecosystem while causing the accumulation of dead trees and other “fuel” that can result in an uncontrollable fire when one does occur.

If you see a tortoise trying to cross the road, it is not illegal to pick it up and move it to safety. But do no more than that. Do not put them in water, a common mistake. They are terrestrial creatures, not agile swimmers. If tossed in the water, they will sink and drown.

I once watched one that had wandered into our backyard swim across the small lake behind us. It waited a long time at shoreline, as if to muster up courage or perhaps become more buoyant with air. It finally paddled slowly across, its head barely above water. My son and I followed him in a jon boat to make sure it reached land. After crossing, it rested a few minutes then determinedly continued on to a nearby Hillsborough County preserve where tortoises are common.

P.J. Benshoff, the long-time naturalist at Myakka State Park, writes in her book “Myakka” that gopher tortoises are most active when the moon is high in the sky and during what famed Florida author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings called “south moon under,” the half-way point between moonset and moonrise.

The next time you see one, whether at The Florida Aquarium or in the wild, remember this isn’t just one of Mother Nature’s awkward slowpokes, but a marvel of ecological efficiency that makes sure, as Hovland puts it, “there is room at the inn” for other creatures.