Day Seven: Gopher Tortoise Scoping—With Purpose
June 12, 2015
I
woke up at 5:00 in the morning with no problems and no complaints whatsoever
from my legs—they had finally accepted the situation.
I got into the office at around 6:55AM and had time
to catch my breath before it was time to head out in the field. Today I was going out with Josh Rowell, a
terrestrial biologist who often deals with the gopher tortoise. We were going to scope some borrows on a
future construction site. The builder
wanted to make sure the threatened gopher tortoise was nowhere to be found
before breaking ground.
We
loaded up and headed out to the site to meet the surveyor and his assistant so they
could show us the burrows they discovered.
The burrows looked like they hadn’t been occupied in years. Plants and
spider webs covered the entrance and there were no new dirt or tracks, but we
still scoped them just in case. We found nothing, but I got more experience
with the scope and the surveyors got the green light to proceed with the
project.
The
surveyors took us on a little tour of the property just so we could see what it
was like. It ended up being a nice little walk in a meadow despite the heat and
small legion if mosquitos following us—it’s a good thing they do not like how I
tasted.
After our
little jaunt, we parted ways with the surveyor and went on to our next
destination, which was some land owned by the Mobile Area Water and Sewer
Systems. They own the land around Big Creek Lake, which is the city of Mobile’s
water supply. They also manage it for longleaf pine and use it as a gopher tortoise
conservation area.
We drove deeply into the property and found some
burrows. We didn’t scope them. But I got
to see a great example of well-managed longleaf pine. I had a fun time, and I feel that I improved
my skills in recognizing and assessing burrows, which is a skill I never
expected. I went home happy with my
short day in the field, and looked forward to the long awaited fish sampling
trip on Monday.
