Rewilding Reptiles to Eco-Engineer the Anthropocene – via Herp Digest

by Brandon Keim | Jan 24, 2018

Image:Paul Hudson / Flickr

In the southeastern United States, burrows dug by gopher tortoises are used for shelter by no fewer than 200 other species of animals, from owls to rabbits and rattlesnakes. Gopher tortoises are exceptional in this regard, but hardly unique: many reptiles dig holes used by other species. Yet they’re rarely regarded as ecosystem engineers — an oversight that’s repeated often when it comes to reptiles, and limits our vision of just how ecologically important they’ve been and how important they might yet be again.

“The vision of reptiles as unimportant, simplistic, peripheral and expendable proto-animals remains strongly rooted in society,” writes ecologist Everton de Miranda of Brazil’s Federal University of Mato Grosso in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. “Because reptiles are rarely as noisy as birds or conspicuous as large animals, they often pass unnoticed as ecosystem players.” It’s time, writes de Miranda, for a “paradigm shift.”

Since the end of the last Ice Age, human activity has driven extinct scores of reptilians, with 53 extinctions taking place in just the last century. Many more have been extirpated, and at least 19 percent of all remaining reptiles are now considered threatened — a loss to be understood not just in the usual terms of vanished biological heritage, but the myriad ecological roles they play.

Many reptiles consume fruit and disperse seeds across landscapes, helping those plants to spread and preventing populations from becoming isolated. Animals often go along for the ride too, particularly on marine reptiles: a sea turtle’s shell might host communities containing hundreds of species of plants and invertebrates, forming what de Miranda calls a “miniature reef” colonized by yet more animals.

He describes aquatic reptiles as “ecosystem linkers,” transporting nutrients between water and land, providing prey for terrestrial predators. In the neotropics, for example, crocodilians can comprise up to 70% of jaguar diets. Elsewhere reptiles once were — or, as with remaining large crocodile species, still are — apex predators, shaping ecosystems with their habits. Other species engineer ecosystems by grazing vegetation or, as with gopher tortoises, digging burrows.

As reptiles, especially large-bodied reptiles, continue to decline, ecosystems and their services contract. Some plants, such as baobab trees in Madagascar that rely on tortoises to spread their seeds, may vanish. Less nutrients are transported onto land; in the case of sea turtles, that means less fertilizer for beachside plants and a subsequent erosion of coastal dunes. Fewer burrows means fewer homes for other creatures. On and on the connections go. “Remove a highly interactive species from an ecosystem and other species tend to suffer,” says de Miranda.

The first step in de Miranda’s paradigm shift is appreciating the wealth and complexity of these interactions. Next up: doing something about it. Beyond protecting the reptiles who remain, de Miranda thinks they should be a focus of rewilding and reintroduction programs, particularly in tropical regions where the losses are most acute. One rewilding candidate is the Cuban crocodile, once an apex predator of Caribbean landscapes and now restricted to two tiny, insular populations; people might also, says de Miranda, keep an open mind to the value of reptiles now living outside their historic ranges.

Though some conservation programs do include reptiles, they’re usually an afterthought. Rarely are these efforts framed in larger ecological terms. “Lost and current ecological processes performed by large reptiles may be orders of magnitude higher than what is currently perceived,” writes de Miranda. Unless we appreciate and act on that, “the astonishing biodiversity related to them can vanish, too.”

Source: de Miranda, Everton. “The Plight of Reptiles as Ecological Actors in the Tropics.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 2017. 

Go to for complete original article. 

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2017.00159/full

Wildlife officials urge people to stop painting endangered turtle shells

‘If you want to paint something, paint a rock,’ Florida officials implore after shells of a threatened tortoise species were found daubed with paint

Oliver Milman

Tuesday 9 August 201620.52 BSTLast modified on Tuesday 9 August 201621.50 BST

Wildlife officials in Florida have urged people to not illustrate the shells of a threatened tortoise species after several animals were found daubed with paint.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has released photos of gopher tortoises that were painted red and a shade of turquoise. The FWC said the “illegally painted” tortoises were at risk from paint fumes and from toxins that could be absorbed into the bloodstream via the shell.

Deborah Burr, gopher tortoise program coordinator at FWC, said five painted tortoises, from across the state, have been reported in recent months.

“That doesn’t sound like a lot but we didn’t hear about this happening in the state before all this,” she said. “It could be that there are youngsters who think it’s funny or people who don’t know of the harm it causes.

“This is a threatened species with protections against harassing it, which painting it definitely is. The best thing to do is admire its natural beauty. If you want to paint something, paint a rock.”

Continued …

Environmental Law Bans Floridians from Removing Yard-Eating Tortoises - via Herp Digest

By Katherine Timpf,  National Review Online, DECEMBER 10, 2014 10:45 AM

G topher tortises, named for their habit of digging large burrows in the ground, are a threatened species that thrives in Sarasota, Fla. — which means it’s illegal to remove them from your yard, even if they’re eating around the foundation of your house.

An anonymous Sarasota resident — let’s call him John — tells National ReviewOnline that he personally has over a dozen burrows on his property, including several beneath and around his home.

John requested to remain anonymous because, without any other options, he has been forced to illegally move the tortoises away from his house and fill in the burrows himself — offenses that could send him to jail if the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) finds out.

He says he even called anenvironmental consultant to try to figure out what to do with the “multiplying” tortoises tearing up his yard, and they “chuckled at him,” saying there was nothing he could do unless the tortoises had alreadydamaged the house. He legally could not touch the tortoises — and could not fill in their burrows, either.

“I can’t prove they are damaging my home, but once it’s damaged, it’s kind of too late,” John says.

Gopher tortoises are primarily herbivores and live in sandy soils. The ones in Florida have been listed as “threatened” species by the state since 2007, but are not yet federally recognized under the Endangered Species Act like those in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Up to 360 other animal species are thought to live in gopher-tortoise burrows — which can be up to 52 feet long and 23 feet deep.

Heathery Rigney, FWC’s gopher-tortoise-permit specialist for southwest Florida, tells National Review Online that there are no permits available to residents seeking to remove tortoises to keep their yards from being eaten.

“We encourage them to leave it alone, encourage them to just enjoy it living in their yard,” she says in an interview. “We can provide them educational brochures. If they have children, we have coloring pages so they can learn about native species.”

Floridians can obtain “Burrow or Structure Protection” permits that allow for the “on-site relocation of tortoises” for residents who can prove that burrows “compromise existing structures” (such as one underneath a propane tank) or put the tortoise in danger (such as one in a driveway or parking lot), according to the official gopher-tortoise-permit guidelines.

The key phrase here is “on-site relocation.” Even with this permit, tortoises may be moved only to another area of the same property. That’s right: Even if residents’ homes have existing, proven damage from the tortoises, they are still not allowed to move the animals out of their yards.

On top of that, residents who seek these permits must apply for and be approved to take an online gopher-tortoise-handling-permit class before they are allowed to move them. Threatened structural damage or not, they’re not allowed to fill in any burrows (or even “disturb” any areas within 25 feet around them) without completing all the necessary legal steps.

“In most cases, it is best to live with tortoises and their burrows,” the guidelines explain. “Relocations are stressful for gopher tortoises.”

What happens if you get busted touching one of the tortoises without proper authorization? It’s punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

And it’s not as though this is just some arbitrary law that no one is enforcing. “People who attempt to relocate them without proper permits are charged,” FWC officer Baryl Martin tells NRO.

FWC even has a 24-hour hotline and e-mail contact where people can report violations and earn up to $1,000 if the tip leads to an arrest. John says he is particularly terrified because he knows there is a tortoise-touching tattletale in the neighborhood who called FWC after seeing another neighbor filling in holes alongside his house to save the foundation from collapsing.

“Some neighbor across the way spied on them and ratted them out to county environmental people, who scolded them and put the fear of God in their hearts,” he said. “If a neighbor that doesn’t like me decides they want to give me trouble . . . all the neighbor has to do is say, ‘I think I see somebody doing something wrong.’”

Other Sarasota residents have told NRO that they, too, have had problems with the tortoises in their yards, but are too scared to be interviewed for fear the FWC may discover that they have touched one.

“I suppose on one level I’m not exactly living in fear, but I’ve had a nightmare or two of the whole federal government descending on me with SWAT teams,” John says.

Florida man caught killing, and eating, threatened tortoises

28th August 2014

By Daniel Wallis

MIAMI (Reuters) - Wildlife authorities in Florida caught a man who killed and ate 15 gopher tortoises and planned to slaughter 11 more of the threatened reptiles, a spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said a tip-off led an officer to woods in Citrus County on Florida's west coast where he found tire tracks and shells dumped on the ground. Returning the next day, he found a container holding 11 live gopher tortoises.

"He hid himself and waited, figuring the subject would return that afternoon," the FWC said in a statement, adding that when the man came back he admitted to feasting on the threatened species.

Continued ...

Gopher tortoises no longer buried alive, but will relocation save them? – via Herp Digest

April 16, 2012  By Kevin Spear, Orlando Sentinel

Florida's approach to saving gopher tortoises from extinction a decade ago allowed developers to bury the docile reptiles alive in their burrows in return for what critics called "blood money" that was used to buy and protect tortoise habitat elsewhere.

Thousands of tortoises a year were sentenced to death at the height of Florida's building boom, with Orange County leading the way. Opposition from environmentalists and animal-rights advocates finally brought a halt to the state's "pay to pave" program in 2007 — just as the nationwide housing slump and Great Recession brought a halt to most new construction, anyway.

Now, as development throughout the state starts to show signs of recovery, nearly five years after government-sanctioned tortoise deaths were ended, defenders of the reptile say it is better off, though they don't yet know if the state's new approach of relocating tortoises when they get in the way will ultimately save the creatures from oblivion.

"The main thing is they are not being buried anymore," said Matt Aresco, a Panhandle ecologist who led opposition to the "entombment" of tortoises. "And the second thing is they are being put on protected sites."

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission allows developers to move tortoises that are blocking construction just a short distance to an undisturbed area of the same development tract. Most of the time, though, developers pay the owners of designated ranches, timberland and other largely natural landscapes to take in tortoises from construction sites.

To get paid for adopting these long-living land dwellers, those landowners must permanently designate their acreage as green space and ensure it remains healthy — not overgrown with brush, for example — as tortoise habitat.

Deborah Burr, the state wildlife agency's tortoise coordinator, said the state's relocation policy for tortoises appears to be working, at least if it's judged by the high survival rate of those animals moved to new turf.

One reason for that high rate, she said, is that the transplanted tortoises must be fenced in for several months until they adapt to their new surroundings. Without that added measure, Burr said, "They'll walk themselves to death to get back to where they came from."

Burr said that, apart from a $300 permit fee, the cost to relocate a tortoise can vary considerably. But typically it includes $500 for catching, transporting and releasing the animal, and a $1,000 payment to the owner of the relocation site.

"There is a potential to make a profit," Burr said, and that has led to a substantial increase in the amount of protected green space in Florida set aside for tortoises. Nearly 20 private parcels with more than 5,000 acres combined now offer sanctuary to as many as 7,800 relocated tortoises.

Recently, a crew used a backhoe to unearth 19 tortoises from a site where Orange County intends to expand its McCormick Road wastewater plant. State rules require tortoises to be relocated within the same region, so the 19 were taken to the Adams Ranch in south Osceola County.

A backhoe has become the standard tool for relocations; it's large enough to remove tons of sand but, in the hands of a skilled operator, delicate enough to follow the twists and turns of a turtle's burrow without hurting the animal.

"You never know where the burrow is going to go — so you have to be careful," said Liz Barker, an environmental consultant overseeing the Orange County job.

Legal entombment, which began in the early 1990s, typically cost a developer $1,000 for a permit to bury a gopher tortoise. In 2006, the state's wildlife agency authorized entombment of 12,690 tortoises and the relocation of another 4,436. In 2007, when Florida stopped issuing entombment, or "incidental-take," permits midway through the year, 6,867 incidental-take and 11,222 relocation permits were issued.

Development activity plunged with the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, giving Florida a chance to refine the new relocation policy, Aresco said. The number of tortoise relocations permitted fell to fewer than 6,000 in 2008, fewer than 4,000 in 2009 and fewer than 3,000 in 2010.

Only last year did the number begin to edge up, to 4,564.

"The key is having enough protected areas ready when development starts to kick in again," Aresco said.

Florida's tortoises number in the hundreds of thousands. But experts aren't as concerned about an exact head count as they are the rate of decline. That's difficult to determine, because tortoises can live as long as 60 years and are among the slowest of Florida's wildlife to reach breeding age: Females might not produce eggs until more than 20 years old.

The state classified tortoises as threatened in 2007, the year entombments ended. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that, though the species is at risk of extinction, the agency doesn't have enough money to declare it threatened, as well. And federal wildlife-protection law is significantly more powerful than Florida's.

Though relocated tortoises appear willing to settle down wherever they are placed — once they complete their stay behind a fence — experts still don't know whether they will simply live out their lives in their new homes or establish thriving populations to help the imperiled species recover.

"That's a very tough question," Burr said. "Gopher tortoises live for so long that you can't after just one year claim success and move on."

Florida's approach to saving gopher tortoises from extinction a decade ago allowed developers to bury the docile reptiles alive in their burrows in return for what critics called "blood money" that was used to buy and protect tortoise habitat elsewhere.

Thousands of tortoises a year were sentenced to death at the height of Florida's building boom, with Orange County leading the way. Opposition from environmentalists and animal-rights advocates finally brought a halt to the state's "pay to pave" program in 2007 — just as the nationwide housing slump and Great Recession brought a halt to most new construction, anyway.

Now, as development throughout the state starts to show signs of recovery, nearly five years after government-sanctioned tortoise deaths were ended, defenders of the reptile say it is better off, though they don't yet know if the state's new approach of relocating tortoises when they get in the way will ultimately save the creatures from oblivion.

"The main thing is they are not being buried anymore," said Matt Aresco, a Panhandle ecologist who led opposition to the "entombment" of tortoises. "And the second thing is they are being put on protected sites."

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission allows developers to move tortoises that are blocking construction just a short distance to an undisturbed area of the same development tract. Most of the time, though, developers pay the owners of designated ranches, timberland and other largely natural landscapes to take in tortoises from construction sites.

To get paid for adopting these long-living land dwellers, those landowners must permanently designate their acreage as green space and ensure it remains healthy — not overgrown with brush, for example — as tortoise habitat.

Deborah Burr, the state wildlife agency's tortoise coordinator, said the state's relocation policy for tortoises appears to be working, at least if it's judged by the high survival rate of those animals moved to new turf.

One reason for that high rate, she said, is that the transplanted tortoises must be fenced in for several months until they adapt to their new surroundings. Without that added measure, Burr said, "They'll walk themselves to death to get back to where they came from."

Burr said that, apart from a $300 permit fee, the cost to relocate a tortoise can vary considerably. But typically it includes $500 for catching, transporting and releasing the animal, and a $1,000 payment to the owner of the relocation site.

"There is a potential to make a profit," Burr said, and that has led to a substantial increase in the amount of protected green space in Florida set aside for tortoises. Nearly 20 private parcels with more than 5,000 acres combined now offer sanctuary to as many as 7,800 relocated tortoises.

Recently, a crew used a backhoe to unearth 19 tortoises from a site where Orange County intends to expand its McCormick Road wastewater plant. State rules require tortoises to be relocated within the same region, so the 19 were taken to the Adams Ranch in south Osceola County.

A backhoe has become the standard tool for relocations; it's large enough to remove tons of sand but, in the hands of a skilled operator, delicate enough to follow the twists and turns of a turtle's burrow without hurting the animal.

"You never know where the burrow is going to go — so you have to be careful," said Liz Barker, an environmental consultant overseeing the Orange County job.

Legal entombment, which began in the early 1990s, typically cost a developer $1,000 for a permit to bury a gopher tortoise. In 2006, the state's wildlife agency authorized entombment of 12,690 tortoises and the relocation of another 4,436. In 2007, when Florida stopped issuing entombment, or "incidental-take," permits midway through the year, 6,867 incidental-take and 11,222 relocation permits were issued.

Development activity plunged with the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, giving Florida a chance to refine the new relocation policy, Aresco said. The number of tortoise relocations permitted fell to fewer than 6,000 in 2008, fewer than 4,000 in 2009 and fewer than 3,000 in 2010.

Only last year did the number begin to edge up, to 4,564.

"The key is having enough protected areas ready when development starts to kick in again," Aresco said.

Florida's tortoises number in the hundreds of thousands. But experts aren't as concerned about an exact head count as they are the rate of decline. That's difficult to determine, because tortoises can live as long as 60 years and are among the slowest of Florida's wildlife to reach breeding age: Females might not produce eggs until more than 20 years old.

The state classified tortoises as threatened in 2007, the year entombments ended. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that, though the species is at risk of extinction, the agency doesn't have enough money to declare it threatened, as well. And federal wildlife-protection law is significantly more powerful than Florida's.

Though relocated tortoises appear willing to settle down wherever they are placed — once they complete their stay behind a fence — experts still don't know whether they will simply live out their lives in their new homes or establish thriving populations to help the imperiled species recover.

"That's a very tough question," Burr said. "Gopher tortoises live for so long that you can't after just one year claim success and move on."

Gopher tortoises delay some SunRail work (via Herp Digest)

By Dan Tracy, Orlando Sentinel

LAKE MARY — The small, gray gopher tortoise was about 20 feet from the railroad tracks, slowly making its way in the scrub and sand, its destination unclear on a recent afternoon.

That unsuspecting turtle, spooked into its shell at one point, and others of its kind have put a halt to any SunRail commuter-rail construction in the area because they are members of an endangered species.

And unless the weather is absolutely perfect — it has been too cool recently — the little guys (and gals) cannot be moved. So they remain holed up along a roughly 6-mile stretch of track from Longwood to Lake Mary to just south of Sanford.

That means — at least until the weather stays warm — crews can't add a second set of tracks as planned or clear the grounds for future depots in Lake Mary or Longwood.

Experts under contract with the Florida Department of Transportation estimate the Longwood-Sanford corridor holds nearly 200 burrows where close to 100 gopher tortoises live.

Gary Serviss, a principal scientist with Vanasse Hangen Brustlin Inc., said the turtles are drawn to the tracks because the sandy soils are largely high and dry and easy to dig in — just the conditions the species likes.

"It's a quite suitable habitat for them," Serviss said.

The tortoises, one of the oldest living species in North America, also are losing land to development, Serviss said. They are less likely to be bothered by the people working or living near the tracks, he said, and they seem to stay a safe distance from the rails.

The one spotted recently by Serviss and several people accompanying him was likely the equivalent of a teenager, still small but growing. It had left its burrow — No. 125 by the consultant's count — and appeared to be heading for another burrow, possibly No. 127.

Serviss said tortoises typically live in and switch between two burrows, which have a half-moon-type entrance and can be 8 to 12 feet deep and up to 30 feet long.

They are good at sharing and allow a variety of critters to cohabit in their digs, including snakes, frogs, mice and armadillos — up to 250 species in all.

The tortoises eventually will be moved — but not until warm weather stays awhile. According to federal law, temperatures cannot fall below 50 degrees Fahrenheit for three consecutive days after they have been relocated and released.

The rule, FDOT officials say, is supposed to ensure that the tortoises, which are coldblooded and become sluggish as temperatures drop, are not stressed by cool weather after the trauma of being moved.

Fortunately for SunRail supporters, the tortoises should not cause any delays in the May 2014 startup for the initial 31 miles of what eventually will be a 61-mile system. The first phase, which includes 12 depots, runs from DeBary in Volusia County through Seminole County into downtown Orlando to south Orange County.

Construction crews have shifted to working on platform stops in DeBary and Altamonte Springs, with Longwood and Sanford on deck.

FDOT spokesman Steve Olson estimates it will cost at least $221,000 to move the tortoises. It is not an easy task, Serviss said, because the burrows have to be carefully excavated by hand or with a backhoe.

It's unclear exactly where they will end up, but the law says they must be placed within a 100-mile radius of their old homes and in an approved conservation area.

"The ultimate goal," Serviss said, "is to protect the tortoises themselves and move them to a safe place."

For video go to 

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-gopher-tortoises-sunrail-20120215,0,3385034.story

Moving Animals Not a Panacea for Habitat Loss

ScienceDaily (Nov. 3, 2010) - New University of Georgia research suggests moving threatened animals to protected habitats may not always be an effective conservation technique if the breeding patterns of the species are influenced by a social hierarchy.
Research, published in the early online edition of the journal Biological Conservation, found an initial group of gopher tortoises released on St. Catherine's Island, Ga. were three times more likely to produce offspring than a later-introduced group, although the initial group had a much smaller proportion of reproduction-aged males.
"There definitely appeared to be an advantage to the order that the tortoises were released," said lead author Tracey Tuberville, an assistant research scientist at UGA's Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. "The earlier the males were released, the more likely they were to be successful fathering offspring for the next generation."
Moving multiple groups of gopher tortoises at different times may disrupt  their social structure, explained Tuberville, resulting in differential  success in reproduction among potential breeders. Introducing a specific  number of males to reach a target population size may not achieve the desired results if all of the males are not reproducing.

"We found that females released later were not excluded from  reproduction," she said. "If you need to augment a population, you might consider targeting females as opposed to males or introducing more females than males, because females produce the eggs, and they also seem to be incorporated into the breeding and social structure faster than males."
Gopher tortoises are federally listed as a threatened species in the western part of their range, though not in Georgia and Florida, where much  of the destruction of their habitat has occurred. Gopher tortoises are highly social and live in sandy burrows. They prefer open-canopied longleaf pine forests, which now cover only two percent of their historic range. Gopher tortoise habitats are ideal sites for human development, and Tuberville said that in the past, land developers were required to do little to protect their habitats at development sites.
Gopher tortoises from various locations were first introduced to St. Catherine's in the 1980s. A second group from a single population was later introduced in 1994. Biologists and veterinarians working on the island recorded health and survivorship data on the tortoises, each of which were permanently and uniquely marked to be easily identifiable. The researchers sought to identify which tortoises from each group were successfully reproducing after release. After a site-wide capture of all  the potential breeders, researchers collected DNA samples. Once the eggs hatched, they also tested the DNA of the young to determine the parents.
"If we find that the pattern of differential mating success is consistent, or if it is observed in other places, it will inform us whether or not we want to establish populations through multiple releases and also whether or not we want to augment an existing population," said Tuberville. Study co-author Travis Glenn, associate professor in the department of environmental health science in the UGA College of Public Health, said  that new DNA technologies increasingly are being used in conservation and environmental health efforts. "We're trying to use these techniques in new and interesting ways," said Glenn. "That requires partnerships between a greater variety of people.:
"The technology is getting better and better, so the answers will be better and more informative," Glenn added. "The ability to address conservation concerns will be faster, cheaper and more accurate." Story Source: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of  Georgia.
From: HerpDigest Volume # 10 Issue # 47 11/5/10 (A Not-for-Profit  Publication)