We are at our last stop before heading to Atlanta, where John is contracted to work for the next two months. As you can see, we are all snuggled into our camping spot, but the angle from which a picture is taken can be deceiving.
It looks like the tree is snuggling us from this angle. I hope we don’t get a big storm and the tree breaks. We are going out to see if we can find the park’s most famous and special residents, the gopher tortoises. The park is a sanctuary for these tortoises and efforts are being made to create and maintain habitat for this endangered species.
The gopher tortoise is Georgia’s state reptile. One of four species native to southwestern North America that migrated to the southeastern area. Due to the introduction of armadillos to the Georgia area the gopher tortoise is in decline. The armadillos are destroying egg nests at an alarming rate causing the gopher tortoise to be put on the endangered species list.
Also, the loss of long pine tree habitat is adding to the tortoises difficulty. Can you find the tortoise and mound hiding in the wire grass?
The tortoise is an important link in the ecosystem chain. The burrows they create provide homes for, at current count, 360 different species of frogs, snakes, mice and bugs that depend on the turtles for their survival. Now can you see the turtle? We are surprised at how fast these guys are. We thought taking pictures of turtles would be easy. Nope. These big guys move quite quickly and dive back into their burrows if you get too close.
We spend our time hiking the mostly flat trails and driving around looking for wildlife. After searching all day, we arrive back at camp and what do we see? A tortoise burrow.
I didn’t happen to have John’s long range lens so I tried taking a picture through my binoculars. Turns out, we didn’t need to go anywhere at all to see a turtle.
