Turtle Conservancy News and Program Updates
The Turtle Conservancy continues to assist the US Fish and Wildlife Service in triage management of confiscated turtles and tortoises from the illegal wildlife trade. In total, the Turtle Conservancy has taken in over 100 animals in 2018. The majority of which are U.S. species being exported to Asia…
We have been busy transitioning the turtles to fall temperatures in southern California at the same time our Conservation Center has undergone many improvements to the animal husbandry facilities during the month of October. The large greenhouse that houses the asian species of turtles got a major facelift, with all new enclosures and ponds to better fit the needs of the turtles living within. We sunk galvanized metal troughs into the ground to create individual ponds for our Chinese big-headed turtles. And began the process of updating the setups in the small greenhouse to fully maximize the space — we expect to have this complete by the end of next month.
Many thanks to the dedicated team who made all of this possible: Juan Hernandez, Lukasz Pogorzelski, Armando Jimenez, Noel Martinez, Julio Zarrate, Simon R., and Oscar Centeno!
The Turtle Conservancy Team was in attendance at many incredible conferences this month, including the WCN Expo in San Francisco, the Student Conference on Conservation Science in New York City, and the Bioneers Conference in San Rafael. Hats off to the organizers — We know how much effort and dedication it takes to produce a successful conservation event...
We have been incredibly busy this past month here at the Turtle Conservancy's Conservation Center. Two interns, Simon Rouot (L) and Noah Rodrigues (R), joined the TC Team, our incubators seemed to have revolving doors with new turtles hatching almost everyday, and major renovations and redesign of our large greenhouse is underway...
Along with interfering in American elections, the Russians have now established themselves at the Turtle Conservancy–Russian tortoises, that is. Ten of the tortoises arrived over this summer as homeless rescues, abandoned when their owners tired of them. Our Russians are settling in nicely; they are completely uninterested in computers, so we're not concerned about their hacking into our systems...
In mid-June, a team of researchers from TC and HABIO, TC’s Mexican sister organization, spent nearly a week in Mexico’s Bolson de Mapimí to survey the Critically Endangered Bolson Tortoise. In 2016, HABIO and TC purchased the 43,000-acre San Ignacio Ranch at the heart of Mexico’s Bolson de Mapimí desert plateau; at the time the ranch was understood to be inhabited by a good population of tortoises, but no systematic population survey has ever been carried out…
The Turtle Conservancy’s Geometric Tortoise Preserve near Cape Town just got ten new residents! In a recent joint effort between our preserve, CapeNature and an adjoining farm owner we were able to rescue ten geometric tortoises from unsuitable habitat associated with a new 25 acres farm reservoir development…
As previously reported, 10,976 Critically Endangered Radiated tortoises were discovered in Toliara, a town on the southwestern coast of Madagascar. Authorities received complaints of a disturbing smell of death and excrement coming from a two-story house. Upon inspection, thousands of juvenile tortoises occupied the floors, sinks, and bathtubs. They had no food, no water and were lying in their own waste. Over 500 were already dead…
