Massive gopher tortoise die-off at St. Petersburg preserve raises questions

Share
Gopher tortoise like those found at Boyd Hill
Gopher tortoise. By FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute (CC).

Listen:

More than a third of adult gopher tortoises have died at a nature preserve in St. Petersburg, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is investigating.

Axios Tampa Bay reports surveyors conducting a gopher tortoise burrow survey found 57 tortoise carcasses over the last six weeks at the Boyd Hill Nature preserve.

Gopher tortoises are a threatened species that can live 40 to 60 years in the wild.  They spend around 80% of their time in their burrows.

Jeff Goessling is a biology professor at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. The surveyors and Guessling suspect that coyotes are the cause of the problem.

“Observing the dead tortoises that we’re finding – they’re all chewed up, so there’s clearly signs of coyotes- a large mammal predator chewing on the shells.”

And as for the unusually large number of dead tortoises this year?

“I think that what’s happened this year is, it’s probably just the right combination of the coyote’s social structure, and the coyote demographics at Boyd Hill where maybe one or two individuals – it might not even be all the coyotes – it’s probably one or two individuals that have kind of figured out they can catch tortoises in the middle of the day”

Goessling says the species is important to the environment.

“Gopher tortoises are a keystone species for many associated plants and animals.”

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission took blood samples from living tortoises, and will also set up wildlife cameras to observe the coyotes.

Leave a Reply

  • (will not be published)

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

You may also like

student meal
Next school year Hillsborough public schools are offering free meals

Hillsborough Public Schools are offering students free meals for the...

Correspondence Through Poetry. A Mind-Numbing Week.

Father Verses Sons: A Correspondence in Poems by Herbert Gold...

The sound of change: Music’s influence on anti-war and human rights movements

Throughout history, music has served as a powerful catalyst for...

a man in a tye dye shirt talking on a radio microphone
Recreational pot for Florida is on the ballot this fall—let’s talk about it

In four months, Florida voters have the opportunity to vote...

Ways to listen

WMNF is listener-supported. That means we don't advertise like a commercial station, and we're not part of a university.

Ways to support

WMNF volunteers have fun providing a variety of needed services to keep your community radio station alive and kickin'.

Follow us on Instagram

It's The Music Thursday
Player position: