Bringing Our Desert Tortoise Home for the First Time
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Well this post didn’t make it out when I had planned for it (uh… 7 months ago!) but here it is! I’m so excited to share our experience in crafting a tortoise habitat and bringing our desert tortoise home for the first time.
Everyone, say hi to Thor the Sonoran Desert Tortoise!
We took a road trip up to north Phoenix to pick Thor up at the end of March from the Arizona Department of Game and Fish. They have a big facility that houses tortoises over winter while they brumate (like hibernating for tortoises). In order to keep it a no-contact handover, we let them know when we arrived, they brought out a box with our scaly friend inside and once they had retreated back into the building, we put him in the back end of the car for the long road home. Here’s some gratuitous tortoise glamour shots:
For those who have been tagging along, we found Thor last year in early December and once we turned him into AZGFD with the intent to adopt him, the work began! We didn’t do much over the holiday season, but at the end of January, the serious work began. We chose a decent sized section of our yard to portion off for our future tortoise friend and I started by cleaning up after the dog. Not my favorite job (is it anyone’s?) but has to be done.
We broke the ground for our planned fence at the end of February. To be clear, I think I swung the pickax a total of 6 times – my husband Brandon did the lion’s share of the hard work here. He’s a handy guy! I spent most of my time cleaning out anything that would be bad for the tortoise. In our case, since Thor only has one eye, we made it a pretty plain layout. I also spent some time pulling out bermuda grass (more on that later).
I planted several native tortoise friendly plants, and attempted to transplant some others. Due to availability and my own preferences, I went with a tufted evening primrose, snapdragon vine, ruellia or desert petunia, globemallow, buckwheat and a native grass. I’m working on a post on native plants for you! Already growing in the area were globemallow, heron’s bill, spiderling, and bermuda grass among other things. Plenty of tasty treats for our new friend. There is also a young Red Push Pistache tree in the center – great for shade as it continues to grow.
As Brandon continued to work on the fence (I dreamed up a beautiful but also functional corrugated metal and wood number), I started on the burrows. As this was mid-March before things got really crazy here, we were lucky to have my mom come over and hang out with Peanut while we worked in the backyard.
Finally, we completed the fence, buried the burrows and set in the water. I tried to transplant a second round of penstemon but no dice on both attempts. With everything essentially complete, I took photos and sent them off with our application to the AZGFD. Within a day or so we had our pick-up appointment set up! Then it was just a matter of bringing our desert tortoise home sweet home.
Altogether I’m very pleased with the final result. We have a neat little area for Thor to roam around in, some native plants that look good and taste good to him, and a fun area to look at in the grander scheme of the yard. Plus, like any yard or garden project, it’s never truly finished. I have plans for vines on trellises, shade sails and themed decor.
So what do you think? This was such a fun project to work on. I am really tickled by all of the fun new knowledge I learned during this, especially in regards to identifying different native plants and weeds. I have an even greater appreciation of all of the wild things that grow around us.
Are you thinking of adopting a desert tortoise? If you’re in Tucson or Phoenix, the AZGFD and Arizona Sonora Desert Museum are great starting points. As a reminder, if you see a tortoise in the wild, leave it be! The more that stay wild, the better. If you want to do more, you can adopt your own tortoise that is already in captivity. If you have a habitat or tortoise in your future, stay tuned! I’ve got big things coming your way.
