Relocating Australian tortoise sets controversial precedent

As long as it has been known to science, the diminutive western swamp tortoise has been in peril. By the time it was formally named in 1901—using a decades-old museum specimen—Pseudemydura umbrina was presumed extinct. And since it was rediscovered in the 1950s, biologists have struggled to protect it from the twin threats of habitat loss and introduced predators, which drove its numbers to bottom out at just 30 individuals in the 1980s. Now that climate change poses an even more urgent threat to the endangered tortoise, biologists have a controversial plan to safeguard its future—by moving it to new sites outside of its known historical range. The translocation, which took place today, makes the tortoise the first vertebrate to be deliberately relocated because of climate change.

The yearlong trial, several years in the planning, will track 12 captively bred juvenile tortoises released to each of two sites roughly 250 kilometers south of their native habitat on the outskirts of Perth, Australia. Although the sites aren’t ideal for the tortoises now, detailed modeling of rainfall, temperature, swamp hydrology, and tortoise biology predict they will be in half a century.

For the western swamp tortoise, whose numbers in the wild are now estimated at just 50 breeding adults, declining rainfall is the primary concern. The 15-centimeter-long tortoises feed when rains fill swampy habitats in winter, and then enter a state of dormancy known as estivation when the swamps dry out to clay pans in the late spring or early summer. The less rain in winter, the more likely the hatchlings and juveniles will starve before the next winter rains arrive. Swamps that were wet for 5 to 7 months of the year in the 1960s are now often dry for most of the year, and rainfall is set to decline further in the future. Hemmed in by urban sprawl and agricultural land, the tortoises can’t up and move, either. “It’s a double whammy,” says conservation physiologist Nicola Mitchell from the University of Western Australia in Perth, who is leading the trial.

SCIENTISTS PROVE EXISTENCE OF A THIRD SPECIES OF TORTOISE IN MEXICO

A new study titled “The desert tortoise trichotomy: Mexico hosts a third, new sister-species of tortoise in the Gopherus morafkai-G. agassizii group” has established the existence of an otherwise unknown tortoise species in Mexico, with the name Gopherus evgoodei given to it in honor of a conservationist, naturalist, and founder of the Turtle Conservancy.



For many decades, scientists had been doubtful of the variability existing among desert tortoises in Mexico, but the new study carried out by researchers from the University of Arizona has established that a third species of desert tortoise actually exists in the country, with the finding published in the journal ZooKeys.

Dr. Taylor Edwards, leader of the international team of researchers analyzed several tortoises between Sonora and northern Sinaloa over a 6-year period, eventually establishing that those from the south posses much shorter tails with flatter back shells.

Unlike its sister species, whose shells are medium to dark brown with greenish hues, while the bodies are dark gray to brownish-gray, the new tortoise is dark tan to medium-brownish with an orange cast. Again, the new tortoise species is found to live only in thornscrub and tropical broadleaf forests over 24,000 km geographic range.

Little is actually known about the behavioral inclinations of this new species but scientists continue to study it to know. The name Gopherus evgoodei was given to honor Eric V. Goode who found the Turtle Conservancy for his efforts and untiring labor to conserve the creatures.

Cold-stunned turtles recuperate at Greensboro Science Center

In a back room at the Greensboro Science Center, twin blue tubs serve as temporary housing for four special guests — endangered green sea turtles recuperating from a sudden temperature drop off the North Carolina coast that left hundreds of the reptiles in water too cold for them to swim.


The turtles were “cold stunned,” a condition similar to hypothermia that occurs when the water temperature changes before cold-blooded reptiles, including turtles, can migrate to warmer areas.

According to estimates, more than 600 turtles were cold stunned off the coast this month, including the four recuperating at the science center.

The turtles arrived in Greensboro last week and will stay at the center until they’re strong enough to be released into the wild, part of a statewide rehabilitation effort led by the North Carolina Aquarium.

Eight other green sea turtles are recuperating at Ripley’s Auditorium at Myrtle Beach, S.C., after they washed up on beaches along the Pamlico Sound.
Other sea turtles stunned by cold weather in New England are being treated at the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston.

Hundreds of turtles have already been rehabilitated elsewhere and released. Determining a timeline for that process depends on the individual turtle’s case but also on the weather.

Despite there being prohibition on fishing within a distance of 20km from the beach, experts claim that trawler operators still undertake fishing illegally there.