Salt Lake City —The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources currently has 15 desert tortoises available for adoption and is accepting applications.
Mojave desert tortoises, native to areas north and west of the Colorado River in Arizona, Utah, Nevada and California, were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1990. As such, desert tortoises are protected under federal and state laws. In Utah, it is illegal to collect or remove desert tortoises from the wild. It is also illegal to release captive tortoises back into the wild or to transport them into Utah without the proper certifications.
“Removing tortoises from the wild can harm wild populations by reducing their ability to reproduce and sustain themselves on the landscape,” DWR Native Herpetology Coordinator Alyssa Hoekstra said, “Tortoises that are removed from the wild cannot be returned, due to the risk of introducing diseases, especially if they’ve been kept in a home with other animals. We are concerned primarily about the upper respiratory tract disease, spread by the release of sick captive tortoises and associated with population declines in the wild. This disease causes symptoms similar to pneumonia.”
Washington County is the native range of the Mojave desert tortoise in Utah. It’s also an area with increasing growth and recreation, leading to numerous human-tortoise encounters. The DWR occasionally comes into possession of desert tortoises for a variety of reasons:
- Someone illegally removed a desert tortoise from the wild, and it was found in an urban area or outside of its native range.
- Someone was illegally housing a captive desert tortoise. If a desert tortoise owner moves from another state into Utah, they must apply for the proper certifications in order to bring the captive tortoise with them; otherwise, they must return the tortoise to the approved adoption facility where the tortoise was originally obtained.
- An adopted tortoise is being surrendered due to the family relocating.
The Utah Desert Tortoise Adoption Program began in the 1990s to provide a home to captive tortoises that could not be released to the wild, due to disease concerns. The DWR has 15 desert tortoises that are currently available for adoption. If you are interested in adopting a tortoise, you should do the following:
“Captive tortoises make great pets,” Hoekstra said. “They have their own unique personality, they will gladly eat the weeds in your backyard, and they are fairly independent as long as they have shade and food. They also hibernate for roughly five months out of the year, making them a fairly low-maintenance pet.”
In Utah, the majority of desert tortoises reside in the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, where there are over 2,000 adult tortoises.
