Kalahari leopards

[Kapidolo Farms]

http://kalahari-tortoises.com/?q=en/homing-behaviour-leopard-tortoises-stigmochelys-pardalis


This links to a page from a student learning out of switzerland about the homing instincts of leopard tortoises in the Kalahari Desert. Jump the many links to see the greater range of the project, sorta cool.

Will

 

[Yellow Turtle]

It's interesting to know how they will act once we rehome them to their native habitat and also the interaction with local wild torts. Do they have alien parasites that they will infect to local ones?

Will, have you got another subject on this? Especially for the rare tortoise that being reintroduced to their native habitat.

Thanks.

 

[Tom]

I almost missed this!

 

[kanalomele]

Cool! Great project, I will be fascinated to watch as she goes along.

 

[Tom]

I'm not finding the "greater range" you mentioned. Just a brief introduction to her proposed study.

Will, you are by far the expert here, but this study doesn't seem all that well thought out to me. Two groups of four? Is that a large enough group for this study to have any validity? What does a human picking them up and moving them have to do with anything? Why not study their movements within their home territory instead? I have many more questions like this...

I don't want to pee on the parade, and I am curious about what these 8 tortoises will do, but I don't see a lot of "value" in this because of its contrived nature. I can see studying how they get around the man made obstacles that occur within their native area, but seeing what they do when a person picks them up and moves them 5 or 10 kilometers away, just seems so contrived. Moving them in this way will introduce millions of variables into the study that wold not have been there otherwise. She could be moving them into or out of some predators range. There could be natural features like cliffs, forests, marshes, open prairies, caves, etc... that they would not have encountered in their chosen living areas. Not to mention the un-natural features that might be encountered.

What are your thoughts on this? On one hand, learning ANYTHING new about wild tortoises is a great thing. On the other, it seems like the time and money could be better spent to me.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

http://www.ieu.uzh.ch/research/zarp.html
http://www.kalahari-meerkats.com/
http://www.ieu.uzh.ch/research/ecology/island.html
http://www.ieu.uzh.ch/research/behaviour/cognition.html

are links under the "additional information" portion of the initial webpage that I posted, which can be found under the "Menu" list to the left side of the window.

My thought, which are secondary to all your questions which should be put to the researcher, are that the researcher will learn with a common abundant species things that can be applied to other species of tortoise, as in relocation because someone wants to build a seaport, dam, power line, whatever. The range of mitigations that are used for wildlife is broad.

Researchers have learning curves too.

The number of projects/research efforts, and trials for locating captive animals to the wild, or re-locating wild animals from one site to another is ever growing.

Use the "about" button on the menu of the page I first pointed out, then to the right of the woman image, you will see live links to the study supervisors. They are leading her in her research. Look at the projects they are involved in, and that will help further answer some of your questions.

Happy Holidays

Will

 

[Neal]

While I do have the same questions as the above posters, I am still interested in how this turns out. I for one don't think thy will find their way back home, hell mine can't even find their way back to the heat box 20 feet away at the end of the day.

 

[Kapidolo Farms]

I sent Ms. Daniela Abegg an invitation to join this forum based on this link <http://www.tortoiseforum.org/thread-61721.html>. She is the researcher. Will