3 questions about Desert Tortoises

[Shelly]

1. How many are estimated to be left in the wild?
2. Is there any estimate to how many are in captivity?
3. Why does the Department of Fish and Game discourage breeding captive Tortoises?

 

[Stephanie Logan]

I'll bet Yvonne will soon be here to answer your question. If not, you can PM her (Emysemys). She does a lot of DT rescue, I think.

 

[Laura]

#3 Probably casue they cant be released to the wild.
It MIGHT discourage illegal taking. BUT there seem to be plenty in captivty/rescues needing homes and no shortage of babies to those...

 

[chelonologist]

#1. The USFWS is trying to get a handle on this question, as well as trends in populations (increasing, decreasing, or stable). Since wild desert tortoises are cryptic and difficult to detect, and because they occur over a large area with differences in population densities, it's extremely tough to know how many there are in the wild.

#2. I've seen stats from the CTTC on the number of incoming tortoises into their adoption programs that indicate on average about 800 tortoises per year. Many of these are wild tortoises that people illegally take from the desert. I'm not sure if there are any stats on how many captive tortoises there are, but I would guess may be in the hundreds of thousands.

#3. Ultimately the CDFG doesn't want captive tortoises being released into the wild where they may spread disease. Discouraging captive breeding should help control the number of captive animals there are, thereby decreasing the probability that an uninformed tortoise owner will release captive tortoises into wild populations.

 

[Shelly]

Thanks!
I recently saw an article saying the population of DTs in the wild to be around 80,000. Does that sound like it might be in the ballpark?

 

[chelonologist]

That sounds a bit low, but it depends on whether the article considered Mojave, Sonoran, and Mexican desert tortoise populations together, or whether they were only referring to Mojave desert tortoise populations.

 

[Shelly]

Great, thanks so much for all your info. BTW, you have the all-time awesome profession.

 

[Shelly]

One more thing.. I have heard that there is a program where captive bred eggs are being "planted" in traditional DT habitats. But I'm not sure if this is an official government sanctioned program, or something being done informally by private individuals. Do you know anything about this?

 

[Yvonne G]

I haven't heard of that program, but you might find interesting reading here:

http://www.tortoise-tracks.org/dtpc.html#act1

Yvonne