Gopher tortoise is Ga. reptile

Q: What is Georgia’s state reptile? A: Maybe you will dig this answer. The burrow-digging gopher tortoise, which can live 50 years, has held the spot as the state reptile since 1989.

The gopher tortoise can be found throughout the Southeast, from South Carolina to eastern Louisiana. In Georgia, you’re most likely to see them in the southern half of the state.

In “Ecology of a Cracker Childhood,” Georgia author and naturalist Janisse Ray writes, “Of plants and animals native to the longleaf pine barren, the gopher tortoise may be most crucial, in the same way the keystone, or upper central stone in an arch, is thought to be most important in holding the other stones in place. The tortoise is central in holding the ecosystem together.”

The gopher tortoise, which can weigh up to 15 pounds, digs long burrows that “offer habitat for hundreds of other species,” wrote Rick Lavender, communications and outreach specialist for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, in an email. It’s not afraid to come out of its shell to share its underground home with other species, such as snakes, frogs, mice and rabbits.

“Because of that, and because the mainly plant-eating reptiles disperse seeds and return leached nutrients to the soil, the gopher tortoise is considered a keystone species in the longleaf pine community, a species critical to the existence of many others,” Lavender wrote.

The gopher tortoise is state-listed as threatened, a candidate for listing under the U.S. Endangered Species Act in the eastern part of its range, he wrote.

The DNR has been working since 2007 to assign a number to their population, and it’s a priority species in Georgia’s State Wildlife Action Plan.

As of 2016, the DNR’s Nongame Conservation Section surveyed 81 public and private sites. Recently, the DNR found about 500 tortoises at Alapaha River Ranch in Atkinson County. The gopher tortoise is already federally listed as threatened west of the Tombigbee and Mobile rivers in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Lavender wrote conservation strategies are trying to keep the gopher tortoise in the eastern part of its range, including Georgia, off that list.