Tortoises Wait Out Winter at N.M. Ranch
Posted on: Tuesday, 26 December 2006, 12:00 CST
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. - Mexican gray wolves, black-footed ferrets, and aplomado falcons are among the endangered species who have found homes and a chance for survival on Ted Turner's ranches in New Mexico. Now, Turner's Armendaris Ranch is doing the same for a group of bolson tortoises.
Thirty-seven bolson tortoises, at up to 18 inches the largest tortoises found in North America, arrived in New Mexico earlier this year from a ranch in Arizona. Most of them are waiting out the winter in deep burrows on Turner's ranch.
"We work to recover endangered species on all our properties in the United States," ranch manager Tom Waddell said. "It's just another one on the list, but it is exciting and fun."
The bolson tortoises were discovered in the 1950s in Mexico, though scientists believe they have been around in the Southwest for thousands of years. At one time the tortoises could be found in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma. The only ones left in the wild today are in a small population in the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico.
"They're kind of prehistoric. It's kind of like finding a dinosaur," Waddell said.
The Armendaris Ranch is home this winter for 26 adult tortoises. Four tortoises are at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park in Carlsbad and seven others that hatched this summer are at Turner's Ladder Ranch, also near Truth or Consequences.
Tortoises spend most of their lives underground, protected from several cold and heat.
Joe Truett, senior biologist for the Turner Endangered Species Fund, is overseeing the bolson tortoises program. He said next summer the research work will focus on nutrition, reproduction and growth of the young tortoises.
"The first priority next year is to figure out how to capture the eggs - so we can hatch even more young," Truett said.
Bolson tortoises don't start breeding until they are 15 or 16 years old. Females lay from 12 to 15 eggs at a time, then bury the eggs and leave them to fend for themselves. Only about 3 percent of the tortoises burn in the wild survive. This year 7 of the 10 eggs placed in an incubator hatched.
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Information from: Albuquerque Journal, http://www.abqjournal.com
Source: Associated Press/AP Online
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