The final speaker at this year's TTPG conference was a man from Senegal Africa named Tomas Diagne. Tomas founded and runs the "African Chelonian Institute". His organization is primarily focused on saving the SULCATA tortoise from extinction in the wild. YES, I said sulcata and extinction in the same sentence. If you are chuckling, you are not alone. How on Earth could the sulcata be in ANY danger of extinction??? His field estimates found that there are around 40 (yes- FOUR ZERO) sulcatas left in the wild in all of Senegal. By contrast there are an estimated 6.5 MILLION highly endangered Radiated tortoises left in the wild. They literally had to stop the car and get out to remove Radiated tortoises from the roadway every few miles in South Western Madagascar. Both of these stats completely blew me away.
Tomas' group spent years cultivating a relationship with the locals in a big area that he intended to use as a reserve to make sure the tortoises wouldn't be eaten and used for traditional medicine when they were re-introduced. He has recently finished his third and final re-introduction in this 800 hectare area. He showed us pics of the most gorgeous, perfectly shelled, sub-adults as they were releasing them back into the wild. They all had telemetry epoxied onto their shells and I am waiting for Tomas to email me the English translation of the study about how and where they all dispersed.
I could go on and on, but the big question for me was BABIES. Here's a man who has been in love with sulcatas since he was a boy. He has studied them in the wild and kept them his whole life. I don't know of any human on the planet who knows more about WILD sulcatas than this man. So, of course, I asked him if he had studied hatchlings in the wild. What to they do, where do they go, where do they hang out and what do they eat? He told me that until about two weeks before he boarded the plane to come here for the TTPG conference one of his field researchers saw a hatchling in the wild for the first time ever. He was mad at the man for not taking pictures, since Tomas had NEVER seen a hatchling in the wild. They speculate that this baby is out of the adults that they re-introduced in 2006. A week later Tomas himself saw 3 more hatchlings. This man was giddy before me telling me of seeing his firs three wild hatchlings. I asked him where they were and what they were doing and what they ate. He said they were either hiding or moving from cover to cover. He said that he did not see them eat, but that it was the rainy season and everything was green and growing in the........................ WAIT FOR IT.......................................... HERE IT COMES............... in the MARSH area!!!!!!!! All four hatchlings were found in a marshy area!!! In disbelief at what I thought I had just heard in broken English, I said, "Marsh, as in wet and muddy?" He said, "Yes. Like a swamp." I swear this is what we each said. I am not making this up. After watching him get all giddy about seeing his first wild hatchlings, HE then watched ME get all giddy about hearing about wild hatchling sulcatas in a FRIGGIN' MARSH!!! I think we would have talked for hours, but he was called up to give his presentation. But what an AMAZING 20 minute conversation we had. I intend to keep in touch with him and ask him a million more questions. I hope to one day visit his facility and preserves in Senegal. In the mean time he is now in Ventura County, CA touring the Behler Chelonian Institute. If time permits he has accepted my offer to come visit my very humble collection and see my operation. I think he is interested in seeing a small scale hobby-type breeder and how I artificial incubate them. He told me how they remove their eggs from the nest for incubation and put them in a new hole in the ground in a safer area, protected from the myriad of predators.
He will be doing another sulcata only presentation on December 3rd at a private facility not far from my place. So I will see him at least once more before he returns to Africa. I have SOOOOOOO many questions for him...
Tomas' group spent years cultivating a relationship with the locals in a big area that he intended to use as a reserve to make sure the tortoises wouldn't be eaten and used for traditional medicine when they were re-introduced. He has recently finished his third and final re-introduction in this 800 hectare area. He showed us pics of the most gorgeous, perfectly shelled, sub-adults as they were releasing them back into the wild. They all had telemetry epoxied onto their shells and I am waiting for Tomas to email me the English translation of the study about how and where they all dispersed.
I could go on and on, but the big question for me was BABIES. Here's a man who has been in love with sulcatas since he was a boy. He has studied them in the wild and kept them his whole life. I don't know of any human on the planet who knows more about WILD sulcatas than this man. So, of course, I asked him if he had studied hatchlings in the wild. What to they do, where do they go, where do they hang out and what do they eat? He told me that until about two weeks before he boarded the plane to come here for the TTPG conference one of his field researchers saw a hatchling in the wild for the first time ever. He was mad at the man for not taking pictures, since Tomas had NEVER seen a hatchling in the wild. They speculate that this baby is out of the adults that they re-introduced in 2006. A week later Tomas himself saw 3 more hatchlings. This man was giddy before me telling me of seeing his firs three wild hatchlings. I asked him where they were and what they were doing and what they ate. He said they were either hiding or moving from cover to cover. He said that he did not see them eat, but that it was the rainy season and everything was green and growing in the........................ WAIT FOR IT.......................................... HERE IT COMES............... in the MARSH area!!!!!!!! All four hatchlings were found in a marshy area!!! In disbelief at what I thought I had just heard in broken English, I said, "Marsh, as in wet and muddy?" He said, "Yes. Like a swamp." I swear this is what we each said. I am not making this up. After watching him get all giddy about seeing his first wild hatchlings, HE then watched ME get all giddy about hearing about wild hatchling sulcatas in a FRIGGIN' MARSH!!! I think we would have talked for hours, but he was called up to give his presentation. But what an AMAZING 20 minute conversation we had. I intend to keep in touch with him and ask him a million more questions. I hope to one day visit his facility and preserves in Senegal. In the mean time he is now in Ventura County, CA touring the Behler Chelonian Institute. If time permits he has accepted my offer to come visit my very humble collection and see my operation. I think he is interested in seeing a small scale hobby-type breeder and how I artificial incubate them. He told me how they remove their eggs from the nest for incubation and put them in a new hole in the ground in a safer area, protected from the myriad of predators.
He will be doing another sulcata only presentation on December 3rd at a private facility not far from my place. So I will see him at least once more before he returns to Africa. I have SOOOOOOO many questions for him...