In collaboration with the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and with Dr. Jeff Goessling at Eckerd College we are assisting the conservation of gopher tortoises through a head-start project. We bring the eggs into the lab where we hatch them and raise the hatchling tortoises for a year before releasing them back at their mother's nest. This allows the tortoises to escape predation during the most vulnerable time of thier lives, and give them a better chance of survival when release back their natural populations.

 

This head-start project has two goals:

1. Aid the conservation of an Alabama population of gopher tortoises.

2. Test the effect of different head-start overwintering conditions on the tortoises growth, performance, hormone levels, genetic responses to stress, and metabolic rate to better optimize the head-start process for long-term survival and reproduction.

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