Gopher Tortoise
by Laura Fasulo
Title
Gopher Tortoise
Artist
Laura Fasulo
Medium
Photograph - Fine Art Photography
Description
I noticed this young Gopher Tortoise munching weeds in our yard. He stood out to me over the other wild tortoises due to the yellow centers on his back plates. Most of the tortoises by this stage have lost their baby colors. I saw that he was injured with damage to the edges of the shell at the shoulders and rear, was missing some scales from the front leg as well as three toes.
In the evening when the tortoises usually go back to their burrows in the nearby nature preserve I saw him sleeping out in the open against our house. When I checked again around midnight he was still there. I wished there was something I could do to protect him but he is a wild creature and keeping him in captivity overnight would likely be frightening. I thought perhaps he was sick and decided I would take him to the wildlife hospital if it were still laying there in the morning. I put a couple of potted plants on either side of him to give some camouflage and went to bed worried.
The next morning I was happy to see that not only was he alive and well but very busy digging a burrow right outside our door! We must have made such a good impression that he decided to move right in. Though injured he managed to build a grand home for himself. It's an amazing process to watch as he moved huge amounts of sand and even stones as big as he is. We named him Sandy.
Uploaded
March 3rd, 2022
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Viewed 2,047 Times - Last Visitor from New York, NY on 04/25/2024 at 5:48 AM
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