Meet black-footed ferrets Wyatt and Puck, two of the rarest animals in the world

For over a year now I have been writing a monthly blog for the El Paso Zoo posted on the VisitElPaso.com website.  For February I am working on a story about the Zoo's new black-footed ferrets.    It should be posted early next week.   All of the blogs posts of the past year plus some written by other zoo staff can be found at visitelpaso.com

Young bolson tortoise at the El Paso Zoo, Photo by Rick LoBello

Bolson Tortoises are endemic to the Chihuahuan Desert

Here in the Chihuahuan Desert we have many endemic species. For those not familiar with that term, biologists use the word "endemic" for plant and animal species growing or existing only in a certain place or region.  Biologists estimate that there are 156 reptile species in the Chihuahuan Desert with 24 species of endemics. One of those endemics is the bolson tortoise, also known by the names Mexican giant tortoise and yellow-bordered tortoise. In Mexico it is called tortuga grande, tortuga llanero or tortuga topo.

Bolson tortoises once lived in the El Paso area thousands of years ago. They are the largest tortoises in North America reaching 18" in length and weighing up to 30 pounds.  The species was discovered by accident very recently in 1959.   

Over 12,800 years ago they disappeared over a large portion of their range at the close of the Pleistocene. Today they survive mainly in one small area of northern Mexico near Torreón, Coahuila.  I first came to know this species during the spring of 1990 when I was working as Executive Director of the Big Bend Natural History Association. Park Superintendent Jim Carrico, Chief Ranger Phil Koepp and I joined officials from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department on a trip to visit critical bolson tortoise habitat in Mexico.  We were joined by scientists from California who were studying the bolson tortoise at the Bolsón de Mapimí Man and the Biosphere Reserve and Research Station in Durango.  Soon after we returned the Los Angeles Times published a story about a proposed reintroduction effort that would return bolson tortoises to their former Pleistocene range in Big Bend National Park. Twenty-four years later there is no serious effort to return this species to the park, but the effort remains on the radar screen of Big Bend park officials with the help of the Turner Species Endangered Species Fund.

At the El Paso Zoo there are two enclosures for bolson tortoises in the America Lands area and adjacent to the main entrance to the El Paso Water Utilities Discovery Education Center. During the winter months from about October to February bolson tortoises hibernate in underground burrows. As a result don't expect to see them at the Zoo until sometime in March or April.

The El Paso Zoo is working with the Turner Endangered Species Fund and the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park in New Mexico to help with a reintroduction effort. Zoo staff are assisting research scientists in determining the gender of baby tortoises, as part of a larger effort to breed bolson tortoises for eventual release into portions of their former range.

According to the IUCN Red List "this species is listed as Vulnerable because it has experienced a population decline of up to 50% over the past 3 generations. It faced catastrophic levels of exploitation during the middle of the 20th century, with subsequent lower levels of exploitation. At present the species is protected from direct exploitation and part of its extent of occurrence is protected, but some subsistence collection and habitat degradation impacts likely still occur. With the worst impacts over, it is rated Vulnerable (under A1) rather than Endangered (under A2). About six separate subpopulations exist, comprising some 7,000 to 10,000 adults, collectively occurring over about 7,000 sq. km."

I saw a Robin today

January 7, 2013, the first day of school after the holidaysin El Paso

Here is my first entry in my new blog - "Passion for the Wild."   I only hope that the spammers won't find me.  If you know how to keep them away from a blogspot please let me know.  Feel free to add a comment.  I love feedback you know.  And just in case I don't add entries every day (more than likely that will be the case) you can subscribe to the blog and learn of new posts that way.

Earlier today I saw my first Robin of 2014 on the stone wall outside my office window.  The first thing I thought of was not the fact that Robins spend the winters in El Paso.  It was also not the fact that when I was a child growing up in western New York Robins were one of the first birds of spring.  It was of my grandmother, Frances LoBello, who lived across the street from me.

Like so many grandmas in the world my grandma was extra special.  She was a little Italian women who raised five boys and one girl not far from the shores of Lake Erie in the little town of Angola, New York.  By the time she passed away in 1986 she had nearly 30 grandchildren and great grandchildren.  I am pretty sure that I was one of her favorites.  Years after she passed I suddenly realized that we shared a love for writing and I still have copies of many of the letters and cards she wrote me over the years.  I am pretty sure that a part of her spirit lives in me including a part of my flesh.  You see she knew how much I loved her cooking and whenever I went across the street to her house she always fed me some of her amazing Italian food. There was always fresh bread, Italian home made pasta and sauce,  incredible apple pies, strawberry-short cake and tasty fig bars.  If she only knew when I got older I would have a hard time keeping off the pounds.  That's OK though, its cold outside and I may need that reserve in an emergency someday.  I love you grandma!

So what does my grandma's memory have to do with a Robin outside my office window at the Zoo?   Let me tell you.  On more than one occasion grandma would tell me stories of what life was like during the Great Depression. She said that times were so hard for the family in need of food that she would have to put bird seed on the window sill to catch song birds.  I remember clearly that she caught some pigeons and some of the birds we would see around the house.  I guess she must of said she caught a Robin because it was her story that first came to mind when I saw my first Robin of the year.   I only wish I could have a nice green lawn in El Paso and watch Robins pull worms up through the grass like I so often saw in my hometown.   Oh well, it comes with the territory living here in the desert.
I hope the Robin I saw today found something to eat here at the Zoo.  With all the food we put out for our animals, I bet it did.