DESERT-DWELLING TORTOISES EPISODE CLIP

0:00
Welcome to the Mojave Desert.

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This is the driest region in North America, and it's home to the highest recorded air temperature on Earth.

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It's also prime habitat to a remarkable species that made its first appearance on the Wild Kingdom way back in 1964.

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Of all the animals in the desert, the one animal that is most successful in surviving attacks by his enemies is the desert tortoise.

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Almost 60 years later, Dr. Rae and I have returned to pick up the trail where Marlin Perkins and Jim Fowler left off here.

0:39
We are so excited to be here at the Mojave Desert.

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I'm really excited too.

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You know, the Mojave Desert tortoise is considered a keystone species in the desert environment.

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They make these burrows that other animals use, so they're very, very useful.

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They're kind of ecosystem engineers and they serve a great purpose.

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And if you look at a place like this, you know, they are just masters of adaptation.

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Incredible heat and lack of water and food and predators.

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It's amazing they survive in this incredible climate at all.

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And they don't just survive.

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I mean, the Mojave Desert tortoise can live for decades, almost the same as a human lifetime.

1:19
We've got to keep having them on the landscape.

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We've got to learn about them and educate ourselves, and maybe even have a little fun while we do it.

1:26
Yeah, I think we will.

1:28
Yeah, desert tortoises have been living in this region for over 30 million years.

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But in recent decades, widespread urbanization of the desert has radically changed this environment.

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Now, habitat loss, contact with transportation, and invasive predators are all causing the tortoise population to disappear.

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I love tortoises personally because they're incredible animals and they make me smile every time I see them.

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But a lot of people don't know that the population it's really imperiled and it's been declining steadily for the last 20 to 40 years.

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There are many separate threats, all of which are basically attributable to human activity and human decisions.

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Finding them in the wild is really hard.

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Finding them in the wild consistently is even harder.

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The desert tortoise is listed by the federal government as threatened that if we don't intervene, this species is probably going to go extinct.

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To help save them, conservation biologists around the Southwest have teamed up to give desert tortoises a fighting chance.

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Today we're meeting some of these scientists and our first stop requires military clearance.

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Edwards Air Force Base is the center of the aerospace testing universe.

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Everything that flies in the air, it's in.

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The Department of Defense for the most part, gets tested here first portions of the base are in critical tortoise habitat, and it's a huge area that's actually protected.

3:06
It's not surprising that we will find wild tortoise is doing pretty well on this military installation.

3:13
Hi there.

3:14
Hi, it's very nice to meet you.

3:17
Yeah.

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Welcome to Edwards Air Force Base.

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At this facility we are head starting desert tortoises.

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Can we get a look at it?

3:24
Yeah.

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Do you want to check it out?

3:25
Please.

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In partnership with San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, this Tortoise Head Start Program has a simple mission.

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Help protect and grow as many babies as possible.

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These pens are the temporary homes to dozens of wild mother tortoises, giving them a safe place to lay their eggs.

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Peter, would you like to see our adult tortoise pen?

3:49
Love to.

3:51
Here's female FW8153.

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We're already on a first number basis.

3:55
That's right.

3:56
That's right.

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How old is this one?

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We don't know.

3:58
She's at least 20 years old.

4:00
This female tortoise was radio tracked and found to have eggs in the field and was brought into our predator proof enclosures.

4:06
To lay these eggs while I continue my tour of the enclosure.

4:10
Melissa is taking Gray deep into the desert to find out where all of these mother tortoises came from.

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Our field team is tracking adult female tortoises in the desert.

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And these are wild female tortoises that we have put radio transmitters on.

4:27
Hey, Reed.

4:27
Oh, hi there.

4:29
Hello.

4:29
You must be our tracker.

4:31
I am.

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What do you have for us here?

4:33
So we found one of our adult females using our radio telemetry equipment.

4:39
So glad we found her this morning.

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It looks like this tracker is actually like fixed to her body.

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So for these tortoises, we're able to attach the transmitter using a special putty epoxy.

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And then she also has a temperature logger.

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So it's recording a temperature every hour and there's a little chip on board that stores the data.

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Then we can go ahead and download it.

5:01
That is incredible.

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I mean, what a high tech tortoise she's, she's really tricked out.

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Lucky girl.

5:07
Can you estimate her age at all?

5:09
We know she's pretty old because as they age, they start to accumulate these growth rings on their scoots.

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Kind of like tree rings on a tree.

5:19
The fact that hers are almost all worn away because she's a pretty old girl, I wouldn't say she's like over 50, at least.

5:25
Oh, my goodness.

5:26
Good for her.

5:27
All right, now that we've found this healthy female, Melissa wants to know if she's pregnant.

5:33
How can we tell if she's got some eggs for us?

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Well, it's kind of crazy, but we actually bring an X-ray machine to the field.

5:40
Wow.

5:41
How exactly does this work?

5:43
This is a really cool system that wirelessly bluetooth connects to the laptop.

5:47
OK, so we have the little container that will hold our female tortoise, and then this is the actual X-ray right here in this box, right?

5:55
OK, simple enough.

5:58
All right, so instantly we're getting the images.

6:01
Wait, I can tell already those are eggs 12345.

6:06
Am I getting that right?

6:07
That's correct.

6:09
Wow, Mama, congratulations.

6:11
Isn't that cool?

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Female tortoises lay an average of 4 to 8 eggs each season, and every single one of them is critical to growing the desert population.