Gopher Tortoise Goal Reached! – Georgia Wildlife Blog

For Austin McKinney, signing a conservation easement with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in August “seemed a good fit for what we’re trying to do.”

The easement covers 1,210 acres straddling the Turner/Crisp County line near Arabi. Family has owned the tract for years. McKinney, a Newnan custom homebuilder, has visited since he was a kid. The land is rich in groundcover, longleaf pine and outcrops of a unique sandstone called Altamaha grit.

It’s also rich in gopher tortoises. More than 250 of them.

Because of that and the easement, the McKinney property also proved a perfect fit for another distinction: the 65th viable gopher tortoise population permanently protected in Georgia.

No. 65 is a goal the Georgia Gopher Tortoise Conservation Initiative has worked toward since it began in 2015. The benchmark was set to ensure that these gentle, dome-shelled turtles that dig long burrows in sandy south Georgia survive for future generations.

Reaching it is testament to the initiative’s work to keep tortoises in the state off the federal Endangered Species Act list, according to DNR Commissioner Walter Rabon.

“We’re incredibly proud of the success of these conservation efforts,” Rabon said. “Avoiding federal listing not only helps protect wildlife, it also prevents potential economic impacts for our state. This collaborative approach has shown great promise as a model for successful wildlife conservation in the future.”

Over the past 10 years, the initiative’s membership grew to nearly 30 agencies, conservation organizations, companies, foundations and private landowners. When the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided in 2022 against federally listing tortoises in the eastern part of their range, the work of partnerships was cited as one of the reasons why.

Man in gray/tan DNR shirt and cap using a black cabled cam and a yellow plastic case to check a tortoise burrow

Checking a burrow during a gopher tortoise survey (Rick Lavender/DNR)

Conserving tortoises also benefits habitats and scores of other animal and plant species, some of them rare.

McKinney said his family has managed the tract “for exactly what this program is about for years.” Yet walking the land with biologists has helped reveal the diversity of animals and plants found there. “You start realizing some of the things are extremely rare,” he said.

“We’re fortunate to have the property and the ecosystems that support this wildlife. … We take this seriously, and we’re looking forward to continuing to improve the (habitats).”

65 TO SURVIVE

In 2015, only 36 of the 125 viable gopher tortoise populations known in Georgia were protected. Research suggested that 65 were needed to ensure the tortoise’s long-term survival in the state. The minimum for a self-sustaining population of gopher tortoises is 250 adults.

GOPHERS/AT A GLANCE

The gopher tortoise is federally listed as threatened in Louisiana, Mississippi and western Alabama. Throughout the rest of its range, the tortoise is protected by state law. Ecologically, the gopher tortoise is a keystone species. These tortoises dig deep, long burrows that are used by more than 300 different animal species. One, the eastern indigo snake, which is federally listed as threatened, uses gopher tortoise burrows as overwintering refuge. Both the gopher tortoise and the eastern indigo are priority species in Georgia’s State Wildlife Action Plan.

Gray and yellow juvenile gopher tortoise in green grass

Juvenile gopher tortoise (Linda May/DNR)

GOPHER TORTOISE CONSERVATION INITIATIVE

Started by DNR, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, members of the initiative also include:

Athens Land Trust
Bobolink Foundation
Georgia-Alabama Land Trust
Georgia Chamber of Commerce
Georgia Conservancy
Georgia Department of Transportation
Georgia Forestry Commission
Georgia Power
Georgia Wildlife Federation
Knobloch Family Foundation
Open Space Institute
Pattillo Industrial Real Estate
R. Howard Dobbs Jr. Foundation
Robert W. Woodruff Foundation
Southern Power
Tall Timbers
The Conservation Fund
The Jones Center at Ichauway
The Nature Conservancy
The Orianne Society
Turner Foundation
U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities
U.S. Forest Service (Forest Legacy Program)
WildArk

WHAT PARTNERS ARE SAYING

The USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service is honored to be a part of this tremendous achievement. This is a great example of how USDA and other federal resources can be joined with state and private resources to make lasting improvements for generations to come.
Terrance O. Rudolph, state conservationist
USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

The Gopher Tortoise Conservation Initiative is a great example of the success that can be achieved when there is collaboration of state, federal, nonprofit and private funders. The expertise of Georgia DNR biologists ensures that the protected land will be restored and maintained for this keystone species and managed for the enjoyment of future generations.
Eleanor Ratchford, director
Knobloch Family Foundation

By leveraging the momentum of the gopher tortoise’s candidate status and its cherished role as Georgia’s state reptile, we built a conservation strategy rooted in science and partnership. Together with DNR, private landowners and dedicated non-government organizations, we identified high-quality tortoise populations and developed ‘tortoise sheds’ – a landscape-based approach inspired by watershed planning. This vision, championed by DNR’s Matt Elliott and the late Don Imm of Fish and Wildlife, continues to guide our work and exemplifies how collaboration drives conservation success.
Peter Maholland, Georgia Field Office supervisor,
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

The Nature Conservancy is proud to have been a part of the ambitious Gopher Tortoise Conservation Initiative, a collaboration which demonstrates how we can bring iconic species back from the brink when we share clarity of purpose and a willingness to act. The initiative achieved not just the original goal of protecting Georgia’s state reptile and the hundreds of species that rely on it, but created an innovative template for public, private and nonprofit organizations to do future conservation work. These 65 protected gopher tortoise populations are proof that if we think big and work together, we can accomplish anything.
Monica Thornton, executive director
The Nature Conservancy in Georgia

Partnership efforts supporting landscape-scale conservation are critical to Fort Benning and other military installations across Georgia. The initiative’s effort was not only important to informing the federal listing decision for tortoises but also in perpetually securing mission-compatible land uses around military installations. Both outcomes are essential to sustaining military missions and stewardship for a host of species and habitats, while affording public-use opportunities and increasing flexibilities for training soldiers on vital Department of Defense lands.
Brent Widener, Environmental Division chief
U.S. Army Fort Benning

As the former chief of real estate for DNR, I am so proud to have been a part of the team of biologist, conservation partners, federal partners … and so many donors to have met the goal of permanently protecting 65 gopher tortoise populations in Georgia. This work prevented the need to list the gopher tortoise and saved over 100,000 acres of land critical for so many other species of concern, much of it available for public hunting and recreation.
Steve Friedman, former DNR real estate chief (retired)