For Immediate Release: January 17, 2017
[Columbia, SC] — Riverbanks Zoo and Garden is working with the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) to help safeguard the endangered gopher tortoise.
Riverbanks’ herpetologists are raising nearly 30 gopher tortoise hatchlings that are part of a survivorship and movement study being conducted by SCDNR. Once common throughout the coastal plain of the southeastern United States, this rare species is now in decline and found only in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina.
The tortoises being reared at Riverbanks arrived at the Zoo in early December after the eggs collected from Aiken Gopher Tortoise Heritage Preserve (AGTHP) were hatched at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Lab (SREL). The animals will live at Riverbanks for the next year.
SCDNR plans to track the tortoises’ movements with the use of radio transmitters once relocated back to the AGTHP—an important site where SCDNR and SREL staff have collaborated since 2006 to evaluate the use of waif tortoises (tortoises from unknown origins) to establish a viable population.
“Reproduction has been observed on the Preserve in the form of hatched nests, but very few hatchling or juvenile tortoises have been witnessed at the site,” said Will Dillman, herpetologist at South Carolina Department of Natural Resources. “By following hatchling and yearling tortoises with radio telemetry, we hope to better understand survival at this location and evaluate the use of waif tortoises as a conservation tool.”
Gopher tortoises are considered a keystone species—one on which other animals in an ecosystem largely depend. Gopher tortoises have the ability to dig burrows of up to 15 feet deep and 30 feet long that provide shelter for at least 360 other types of animals.
Like any other keystone species, declining populations have a damaging impact on the environment. Some of the greatest threats to the gopher tortoise are habitat loss/degradation and illegal collection. Gopher tortoises are protected in South Carolina and designated as a State Endangered Species.
In addition, Riverbanks is boasting its first successful reproduction of the critically endangered Sulawesi forest turtle. This species is considered to be one of the world's 25 most imperiled turtles.
Riverbanks began breeding the Sulawesi forest turtle in 2001 and although the Zoo has been successful producing fertile eggs, establishing a self-sustaining program proved challenging because of the lack of knowledge about the biology and natural history of these animals. The species was first discovered in a Chinese food market in 1995.
Habitat destruction from commercial logging and the clearing of forest for oil palm plantations has greatly reduced the forest cover that the turtle depends upon for its survival. The deforestation rates in Sulawesi are among the highest in the world. In addition to habitat destruction, over collecting for the commercial meat market has dramatically reduced wild populations.