Pleistocene Pause...

Break out the cigars! There’s a new baby born down here on the ranch. It’s a bit premature, but it appears healthy and active. It’s a Bolson tortoise. The thing is we don’t know if it’s a baby boy or baby girl. And we won’t really know for sure until it’s about 15 years old. The sex of the hatchlings is determined by the temperature of the incubator. Males are produced at one temperature range, females at another(Hot mamas, cool daddies. The problem here being there was a prolonged power failure one evening that may have critically affected this newborns gender. But whatever we have,it’s cute as a button and full of life. Hopefully there will be more hatching soon and the nursery will be hopping,well,slowly crawling anyway.
The Bolson tortoise was “discovered”in 1959. Until that time it had been thought extinct for 10,000 years. The story is that a group of biologists working in the Bolsón de Mapimí region of Mexico were at a ranch and saw chickens eating out of a large tortoise shell. They inquired about the origin of the shell and the locals responded that it was, “la tortuga grande del desierto,” the big turtle of the desert.
Bolson populations had declined mostly due to over collecting for food and the pet trade. Incursion of roads, railroads and agricultural development continued to accelerate the decline of the species in the last 40 years. In the central portion of its range locals are keenly aware of the tortoise’s protected status and aid in its conservation. However it is believed that tortoises are still collected and eaten and their habitat compromised.
In the fall of 2006, 26 Bolson Tortoises were translocated from the Audubon Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch in Elgin, Arizona to Ted Turner’s Armendaris Ranch in south-central New Mexico, a Chihuahuan desert environment within the prehistoric range of this species. Here this group of tortoises is known as the Appleton tortoises in commemoration of Ariel Appleton, a champion of Bolson tortoise conservation.
We were privileged to see one of these remnants of the Pleistocene hatch at the “nursery” here on the ranch.. They can take days to work out of their shell and don’t reach maturity until around 15 years. Their life span is similar to that of a human.
The Ted Turner Endangered Species Fund is in charge of the project on the Armendaris and TESF biologist Lisa Haynes is acting mid-wife. She is on call 24/7 and helps the hatchlings by delicately removing shell fragments,keeping moist paper towels under their yolk sac and providing food and water along with other things to welcome the baby into the world. All the incubators are on a system to control temperatures and humidity. Even so it's a venture into the unknown and things happen. At this time only one has made its way into the world, but there are high hopes that as many as 12 others will be pecking their way through shortly.
Lisa will be leaving the ranch for an appointment in Arizona this weekend, and Sandra and I will be watching over the eggs. A new tiny foot poked its way out of another egg this morning and we are following the progress closely. I hope it all happens before she leaves. Because as Butterfly McQueen’s famous line in Gone With the Wind goes, “I don’t know nuthin’ bout birthin’ no babies!”
(This blog entry is taken from Erv's weekly column,"The Outside Story",in our local newspaper.)