One of Southwest Florida's most beloved reptiles is finally getting celebrated the way it always deserved to be. Gopher Tortoise Day is April 10, with the goal of raising awareness for the threatened ...

GAINSVILLE, FLA – To improve my chances, and because wandering around sandy scrub at dawn yelling ‘tortoise, please’ isn’t a real strategy, I arranged to meet Katherine Saylor, the Southeastern ...

Tucked away in the back of the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo lies a shaded grassy area where 10 rescued gopher tortoises spend their days grazing and burrowing — unable to return to the wild but safe ...

A rescued gopher tortoise arrived at the Nokuse Nature Preserve in Florida’s Panhandle while my sister Erica and I were there. It didn’t know how lucky it was. Across Florida, builders are required to ...

Boasting more than 80 distinct ecosystems, Florida is a biodiversity hot spot. In fact, more than 4,000 animal species are native to the Sunshine State. In the heat of summer, a growing number of ...

Dog is first in United States trained to find gopher tortoises and burrows. Goal is to protect gopher tortoises from development. Gopher tortoise burrows provide food and habitat for about 365 species ...

Florida gopher tortoises are a threatened species and 365 others depend on their burrows. Florida development boom is leaving little room for the native land tortoises. Developers may have to relocate ...

Listen to a Narrated Version of This Story in the ICYMI Series for the Line Life Podcast Wes Graham holds up his hand like a sergeant halting his squad. “See him? There he is,” he said. The ...