The recent discovery of Australia’s most endangered reptile surviving in colder temperatures has inspired conservationists in Perth to continue trying to save the species thought to have only 400-500 individuals remaining in the wild.
Introductions of the Western swamp tortoise into other areas are now on the docket, as scientists look to find a suitable home for the animal while its natural habitat dries up.
GNN has reported on some pretty stunning turtles from Down Under, including the “bum-breathing punk” and another turtle that lives in a single river in New South Wales.
But in terms of risk, their environment remains intact, whilst that of the Western swamp tortoise is rapidly drying out. In the state of Western Australia, in the southwestern reaches, wildlife managers recently found a juvenile tortoise 280 miles south of Perth in the town of Northcliffe—the site of a tortoise relocation project dating back to 2016.
Here, water temperatures fall to levels below the recognized minimum for these cold-blooded reptiles to stay active—about 14°C or 57°F. However, herpetologists at the time told national broadcaster ABC News that the continuous flow of the water would allow them to continue foraging. Just in case, other tortoises were released in an area farther north so that growth rates could be compared.
“It’s a pretty significant project because it’s one of the first examples of the assisted colonization of species outside their habitat because of a concern about the climate,” Nicki Mitchell, senior lecturer in animal biology at the Univ. of Western Australia, said at the time.
With only hundreds of these tortoises remaining in the wild, Southern Forests Wildlife official Pauline Hewitt was understandably excited when she found that turtles around the Northcliffe release area survived the cold climates. She found one individual in particular with a cracked shell who was taken to the Perth Zoo for rehabilitation, before being personally released back into its traditional habitat.
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“It was really exciting to see her come home and just to see her flapping her legs as we went to put her down in the water,” Pewitt told ABC.
“We didn’t have certainty that the colder temperatures were something that the species would adapt to so well and it now looks like they’re quite capable of good growth rates in southern locations,” Mitchel again told the broadcaster, looking back at the results of the trial which concluded in 2019.
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A new experimental population has been released in Augusta, about 60 miles east of Perth, and not so chilly.
The motive for the original experiment, as Mitchell alluded to, was that a 50 to 100-year weather pattern model for Western Australia predicts the current habitat of the Western swamp tortoise drying up to a dangerous degree. They would need to be transplanted into similar, but wetter ecosystems, and Northcliffe was identified as one such place.
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