We were tromping around the other day in a longleaf pine savanna in the Moody Forest Natural Area in Appling County, looking for Georgia’s official state reptile, the gopher tortoise.
The shy animal, the Southeast’s only native tortoise, favors the open, grassy longleaf pinewoods that once covered most of Georgia’s coastal plain. The 4,400-acre Moody Forest near Baxley harbors some of the last remnants of this once-great forest.
The tortoise, North America’s largest land turtle, digs its deep burrow in the ecosystem’s sandy soils and forages on the low-growing plants that thrive there.
More than 250 other species — including frogs, lizards, snakes, mice, skunks, foxes, beetles — also may rely on tortoise burrows for shelter and nesting places. Thus, the gopher tortoise is called a keystone species because so many other animals depend on it.
The gopher tortoise itself, however, is in serious decline. Habitat destruction from development, logging, agriculture and other problems has greatly reduced its populations. The tortoise is on the federal Endangered Species List in its western range (Mississippi, Louisiana, western Alabama) and is a candidate for federal listing in its eastern range, including Georgia.
State and federal biologists, however, hope to avoid the need for the more stringent protection in the eastern range by helping landowners adopt voluntary conservation measures. Some 80 percent of gopher tortoise habitat is in private or corporate ownership.
To help determine the tortoise’s status and how best to protect it, biologists with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been surveying for the animal in its habitats across South Georgia. I tagged along for the Moody Forest survey.
To locate the burrows, the biologists followed preset transects. When a burrow was found, a camera attached to what resembled a garden hose was threaded into the hole. Images were displayed on a computer, enabling the biologists to see if a tortoise was in the burrow.
The Moody Forest survey found 118 tortoises, 29 of which were juveniles or sub adults. Our leader, Matt Elliott of the DNR, declared the results to be “excellent.”
IN THE SKY: Autumn officially begins at 10:49 a.m. Saturday. At this time of year, we have about 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night.
The moon will be first quarter Saturday, high in the south just after dark and setting around midnight, said David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer. Venus rises out of the east about three hours before sunrise. Mars is low in the west just after dark and sets in the west a few hours later. Jupiter rises out of the east about midnight.
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