Recently, I went on a desert tortoise survey with Arizona Game & Fish. We went to an area with a high density population. On my way, we saw two bald eagles by a river but I was unable to get photos.
The weather was nice the first night. We went for a dusk hike in search of herps, but didn't seen anything. Well, I saw a great horned owl on a saguaro but I couldn't get close enough for a decent night picture.
Late in the night, I went on a night hike by myself despite reports of mountain lions in the area. But again, I didn't find any herps...but did see a striped skunk who was quicker than me....so no pics again!
Here is a pic of the survey area:
Target animals:
We woke up early and split into two groups. We were planning to search for about 4 hours as the heat would get up to 100 degrees midday.
I was a little skeptical since we didn't find any reptiles the night before.
We hiked around and found some good signs:
Tortoise poop everywhere:
Burrows Too!
The other surveyors found a tortoise within 30 minutes, which we found out via radio.
Pic courtesy of AZG&F:
Our group searched for three hours, while we hear on the radio that the other group found 4 live tortoises and one dead tortoise.
I was getting frustrated when suddenly one of our group members yelled "TORTOISE!"
I ran over there and didn't see anything, but upon closer investigation:
Still don't see?
We did our survey stuff. The others said they have never found a tortoise this small in the "wild". I believe only a handful of juveniles have been found in this area in the past decade.
Goodbye little guy! Good luck!
I look forward to next years' surveys and want to thank Arizona Game & Fish along with all the feelow volunteers.
The weather was nice the first night. We went for a dusk hike in search of herps, but didn't seen anything. Well, I saw a great horned owl on a saguaro but I couldn't get close enough for a decent night picture.
Late in the night, I went on a night hike by myself despite reports of mountain lions in the area. But again, I didn't find any herps...but did see a striped skunk who was quicker than me....so no pics again!
Here is a pic of the survey area:
Target animals:
We woke up early and split into two groups. We were planning to search for about 4 hours as the heat would get up to 100 degrees midday.
I was a little skeptical since we didn't find any reptiles the night before.
We hiked around and found some good signs:
Tortoise poop everywhere:
Burrows Too!
The other surveyors found a tortoise within 30 minutes, which we found out via radio.
Pic courtesy of AZG&F:
Our group searched for three hours, while we hear on the radio that the other group found 4 live tortoises and one dead tortoise.
I was getting frustrated when suddenly one of our group members yelled "TORTOISE!"
I ran over there and didn't see anything, but upon closer investigation:
Still don't see?
We did our survey stuff. The others said they have never found a tortoise this small in the "wild". I believe only a handful of juveniles have been found in this area in the past decade.
Goodbye little guy! Good luck!
I look forward to next years' surveys and want to thank Arizona Game & Fish along with all the feelow volunteers.
