Tag: Gopher Tortoise
The content below has been tagged with the term “Gopher Tortoise.”
Articles
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Col. Matthew Higer, 96th Test Wing vice commander, bends down to release a gopher tortoise into its new home deep within the Eglin Air Force Base. Photo by Samuel King Jr., U.S. Air Force.Boosting the gopher tortoise
August 22, 2017 | 8 minute read
Atlanta, Georgia – Typically, animals like the Florida panther lose their Southern habitat, dwindle perilously close to extinction and end up on the endangered species list. Federal, state and non-profit groups hustle to raise money and conserve land to bolster the populations with the chance, one day, of delisting it. The gopher tortoise, though, just might buck the trend. An at-risk species in Georgia, Florida and parts of Alabama and South Carolina, the tank-like tortoise is the recipient of an unprecedented, high-dollar collaboration between government agencies, NGOs and the private sector to keep gopherus polyphemus from ever gracing the threatened or endangered species list. Learn more...
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Reese Thompson is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others to conserve a natural longleaf pine stand on his south Georgia land. Photo by Bill O’Brian, USFWS.
Longleaf pine for Georgians
August 22, 2017 | 9 minute read
Longleaf pine trees once blanketed the landscape from southern Virginia to east Texas. They were majestic hallmarks of the Southeast. Learn more...
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Longleaf pines, says Salem Saloom, are "part of our heritage." Photo by Mark Davis, USFWS.
Growing trees, saving species
August 9, 2017 | 8 minute read
If one of the Southeast’s signature species is the gopher tortoise, so, too, is the towering pine that shades its burrow. The longleaf pine is one of the Southeastern United States’ great trees. When European settlers came to North America, they discovered Pinus palustris. It stretched across 90 million acres, from east Texas to Virginia, and was just what a young nation needed to grow. The wood from the conifer built homes, sailing masts and even roads. Learn more...
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A gopher tortoise hiding in its shell. Photo by Ben Williams.
Florida couple dedicates property to conservation
July 20, 2017 | 2 minute read
Ben and LouAnn Williams own approximately 3,400 acres of pinelands interspersed with bottomland hardwoods in Putnam County, Florida, between Jacksonville and Daytona Beach. Their property contributes to conservation on a regional scale because it is adjacent to publicly owned conservation areas, creating an important link in a chain of conservation lands from central Florida to the Georgia state line. Sandhill after prescribed burn. Photo by Ben Williams. In 2012, the Williams’ began establishing longleaf pine on their property and reintroduced prescribed burning. Learn more...
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Altama Plantation. Photo by Nicole Vidal, USFWS.
A gem for hunters and hikers alike
July 12, 2017 | 4 minute read
Brunswick, Georgia – Altama Plantation is perhaps the most critical, and intriguing, piece of property along the entire Altamaha River corridor. It was here in the early 1800s that plantation owner James Hamilton Couper introduced the Dutch system of tidal floodgates to grow rice. He planted sugar cane and built a refinery whose red-brick remains still stand. Couper, a noted scientist, also recorded the first eastern indigo snake, a threatened species which bears his name (Drymarchon couperi). Learn more...
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Mr. Dink NeSmith has a special relationship with the Altamaha River. Photo by Nicole Vidal, USFWS.
Local landowner fights for the Altamaha
July 12, 2017 | 3 minute read
Jesup, Georgia – “Well now, welcome to the swamp.” Dink NeSmith stands astride a weathered wooden dock on Sandy Lake, a meandering offshoot of the Altamaha River. To some, the oxbow lake is nothing but a muddy, buggy, alligator-friendly bog. To NeSmith, it’s an open-air cathedral in all its natural “majesty.” “God put it here a long time ago,” he preached, “and it’s on loan to my family and me and we want to do our part to make sure it remains a clean, safe environment for our great, great, great, great grandchildren. Learn more...
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Salt marsh along the Altamaha River. Photo by Nicole Vidal, USFWS.
Many partners work together to protect “the Amazon of the South” for generations to come
July 12, 2017 | 13 minute read
It meanders 137 miles through the wild heart of Georgia, a blackwater beauty that nourishes longleaf pine forests, cypress swamps, saltwater estuaries and the barrier islands that protect the Atlantic coast and migratory birds alike. Learn more...
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A tank littered with bullet holes at Townsend bombing range. Photo by Nicolve Vidal, USFWS.
The military embraces conservation
July 12, 2017 | 4 minute read
Townsend, Georgia – U.S. Marine Corps jets and helicopters rain thousand-pound bombs and 30-caliber bullets on a slice of the Altamaha River corridor. Gopher tortoises, flatwood salamanders and eastern indigo snakes benefit mightily. Say what? Townsend bombing range. Photo by Nicole Vidal, USFWS. Welcome to a looking-glass world where bombs are good, the Pentagon is an environmental agency and the ever-expanding Townsend Bombing Range along the northwestern edge of the corridor protects critical greenways and endangered species. Learn more...
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A field of young longleaf pine at the Coastal Headwaters Forest. Photo by Dan Chapman, USFWS.
A harmonious future for profits, pine and at-risk species along the Florida-Alabama line
May 9, 2017 | 7 minute read
Pace, Florida — Longleaf pine forests once covered 90 million acres from Virginia to Texas, a bio-diverse swath of timber prized by shipbuilders and gopher tortoises alike. Sprawling cities, large farms and commercial pine plantations, though, replaced much of the longleaf habitat. Today, less than five million acres remain. Conservationists’ goal of eight million acres by 2025 seemed laughable. Until Resource Management Service and Jimmy Bullock came along. Map of the Coastal Headwaters Forest by the Conservation Fund and RMS. Learn more...
News
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October 16 ribbon cutting ceremony to be held at Sansavilla Wildlife Management Area
October 16, 2017 | 2 minute read
Mt. Pleasant, Georgia – On Monday, October 16, the Department of Natural Resources will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony to announce the acquisition of the final phase of more than 19,000 acres purchased for the Sansavilla Wildlife Management Area. Featuring 12 miles of Altamaha River frontage and one of the largest gopher tortoise populations in Georgia, the area provides fishing opportunities, wildlife watching locations, canoeing, boating, and hunting for deer, turkey, and small game species. Read the full story...