April 8, 2015

D is for Desert Tortoise

One of the animals that live in the Sonoran Desert is the Desert Tortoise.

It is actually kind of rare to see one in the wild. The only situation where I have come across them in the wild, was when they were trying to cross the road. I have encountered maybe about a handful in my lifetime.

I did have a Desert Tortoise when I was younger. It lived in the back yard and stuck around for a couple of years. It loved to eat the fruit from the prickly pear cactus. It was always a very exciting time when it would show up after months of hibernation.

Now-a-days if you find a Desert Tortoise in the wild, it is illegal to just pick it up and take it home. Although, if you see them crossing the road, it is okay to carefully pick them up and carry them to the other side.

The good news is, if you really want to own a Desert Tortoise you can adopt a captive Desert Tortoise.

A Desert Tortoise can live for an extremely long amount of time. In the Sonoran Desert, wild tortoises can live about 35 or 40 years although some live to be much older. So, if you find you are unable to care for it, or if you move out of the state where you adopted it, you will need to find someone else to take care of it or return it to an adoption agency as it is illegal to remove a Desert Tortoise from the state of adoption and it is also illegal to release a captive desert tortoise into the wild. 

Photo by

Photo by

Photo by


http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/p/a-to-z-challenge-sign-uplist-2015.html


2 comments:

  1. Hello, said I'd be here and so I am.

    I'm never out in the desert enough to see a tortoise, but it's cool that they can live there.

    I'm also signed up to follow your blog!

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    Tossing It Out

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love these photos! I've always wanted to spend more time exploring the dessert.
    Great job so far.
    Heather M. Gardner
    Co-host: Blogging from A to Z April Challenge
    Blog: The Waiting is the Hardest Part [http://hmgardner.blogspot.com/]

    ReplyDelete
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