Dozens of dead tortoises discovered in state forest

Dozens of dead tortoises discovered in state forest

Forestry workers roaming the Withlacoochee State Forest to look for trees suitable for harvest have come upon something far more grim: the shells of about 50 newly dead gopher tortoises.

Though such "die-offs" are not uncommon, this one has been dramatic enough to attract the attention of state biologists, who are planning to visit the forest to investigate the cause, probably next week.

"The bottom line is, we're always concerned when we find a large number of dead animals," said Joan Berish, a state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission researcher who specializes in gopher tortoises.

So far, the dead tortoises have only been found in less than a square mile of the forest just north of Stage Coach Trail in Citrus County, in the Citrus Tract, said Vince Morris, an ecologist at the state Division of Forestry office north of Brooksville.

The number of dead could easily be larger because the workers have only looked in a 480-acre area designated for the timber sale, and because they have been looking primarily for marketable trees, not tortoises, he said...

More...

This is unfortunate and very disturbing. It will be important to understand the scale and reason for the die-off. Gopher tortoises are a threatened species that could be hit hard by any massive die-off.

Stay tuned...

For more information on Gopher Toroises, see:

Gopher Tortoise Council

[edit on 10-11-2005 by loam]

Oh, Loam. You are always the best in finding interesting information.

Well done.

If you find more, that will be great!
Thank you.

The article seems to lean toward the idea that there is a disease present, but considering what that area has been thru....

Could this have anything to do with the hurricanes, and the toxins that might have been flooded into this area? Loam, I know you did a lot of study on that back a while....

There is also a possibility of someone using poison to kill something else and getting the poor turtles as well. ( We had a case locally where a large number of birds were killed by someone putting out poison ).

.

Thanks, Ptolomeo...


frayed1: Not sure.... Let's see what they find when they search how widespread the deaths are.

Ahh! More to my paranoia.

To recap it. In this area Dogs have been acting extremley weird. Birds have evacuated westward. Seen weird things in the sky. PLus the fireball stuff from the other day. Something is about to happen I can just feel it.