林地管理伙伴关系 helps give gopher tortoises head start
The best way to celebrate Gopher Tortoise Day is to ensure there are more gopher tortoises across their natural range in the southeast. The 林地管理伙伴关系 between the National Fish 和 Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) 和 International 纸, 成立于2013年, provides conservation grants to 恢复 和 conserve gopher tortoise populations 和 longleaf habitat.
Helping gopher tortoises to thrive isn't just good news for tortoises; it also means good news for hundreds of other species that depend in big 和 small ways on the tortoise in its role as a keystone species. “They are called a ‘keystone species’ because more than 350 other animals — like owls, 蛇, 狐狸, 蟾蜍, 臭鼬, 和 lizards — use gopher tortoise burrows to shelter from the heat, 火灾, 和捕食者,库尔特·布尔曼说, Senior Research Associate at the University of 乔治亚州’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. Gopher tortoises spend most of their lives in burrows that can be more than 20-feet long 和 eight-feet deep.
林地管理伙伴关系 grants are helping gopher tortoises 和 their habitat by supporting collaboration between 长叶联盟, the University of 乔治亚州’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, 以及南卡罗来纳州自然资源部. These organizations are augmenting 和 restoring gopher tortoise populations through a technique called “head-starting.” About 350 eggs have been collected from wild populations to hatch in captivity. Hatchling tortoises are reared indoors for one year to achieve larger body sizes than would occur naturally, 从而变得更能抵抗捕食. This gives tortoises a greater chance to survive, 和 eventually become subadults.
起跑提高生存率
“在野外，幼龟的存活率自然很低. 浣熊, 土狼, 其他掠食者经常吃乌龟蛋和幼龟, 死亡率可高达95%,丽莎·洛德说。, 长叶联盟的保护项目主任. “The head-started juveniles are about a year old — but the size of wild 3-to-4-year-olds — when released back into well-managed longleaf pine habitat. 少年犯在监狱里被释放.5英亩的围栏，以减少流浪, 帮助建立对网站的忠诚度, 和 increase their chances of staying in the area when the pen walls are removed.”
Gopher tortoise habitat covers the coastal plain from South Carolina through 佛罗里达 to southeastern Louisiana, 主要生长在大草原的长叶松栖息地. The gopher tortoise is 联邦ly listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in the western portion of its range (from Louisiana, 东至阿拉巴马州的莫比尔河).
美国.S. 鱼类及野生动物管理局, the agency responsible for assessing the potential listing of species as threatened or endangered under the ESA, issued a decision in October 2022 announcing that the eastern population of the gopher tortoise (east of the Mobile 和 Tombigbee rivers in Alabama, 乔治亚州, 佛罗里达, 和 South Carolina) did not warrant 联邦 listing as threatened. 该机构引用了美国政府的集体工作.S. 鱼类和野生动物管理局和其他联邦机构, 国家机构, 非政府组织, 私人土地所有者也要恢复, 维护, 和 protect longleaf pine habitat 和 head-starting efforts like the one in South Carolina as contributing to their decision.
Private l和owners help gopher tortoises by caring for longleaf pine habitats, 包括使用规定的燃烧
长叶松林和稀树草原适应火, 这意味着它们依靠周期性燃烧来茁壮成长. They also make up one of North America’s most biodiverse forest ecosystems 和 are home to countless rare species, especially when they have open canopies 和 diverse ground cover. Longleaf pine once covered an estimated 90 million acres across the southeast but now covers only about 5.200万英亩. The diminished forest is a significant contributor to the decline in gopher tortoise populations.
The decline in longleaf pine forests means the other critical piece supporting the head-start program is having enough 恢复d longleaf habitat for the gopher tortoise to return to. More than 80% of potential tortoise habitat is privately owned, 其余的由当地政府控制, 状态, 联邦, 或者环保组织.
“We have educational 和 cost-sharing programs to help l和owners 恢复 和 conserve the longleaf pine ecosystem, 这对地鼠龟也有帮助. 一个重要的重点是教土地所有者使用规定的焚烧, which also 维护s the ground cover that tortoises need to thrive,上帝说.
长叶联盟’s Longleaf Academy Program prepares private l和owners 和 natural resource professionals to manage, 恢复, 和 enhance longleaf pine ecosystems through techniques like prescribed fire. 学院项目包括Fire和Longleaf 201, a three-day course that teaches people how to 维护 their longleaf st和s with fire.
为了地鼠龟聚在一起
Improving 和 sustaining gopher tortoise populations takes a multi-faceted approach — from restoring 和 维护ing longleaf habitat with prescribed fire to giving young tortoises a head-start in the wild. The efforts of partners like 长叶联盟 to rally public agencies, private organizations 和 l和owners around this important work is critical to ensuring the gopher tortoise 和 the many other species that live in the longleaf pine ecosystem can thrive.
