The desert tortoise is an endangered species in California, so you’re not supposed to keep them as pets, but if they wander onto your property or dig under the fence to find shade and food, or build a home by digging under the garden, you are not allowed to move them, unless you call a wildlife biologist to help you. It’s a pretty complicated endeavor. However, you can sometimes make them feel at home and they make good pets. Still, you may not want to get too attached, they eventually decide to leave and often don’t come back for a while, sometimes never.
There is quite a difference between males and females, and you can easily tell the difference. The males have a slit underneath that matches the shell shape of the females for mating, as the male mounts the female in this process. That’s the easiest way to find out. If you see a desert tortoise, you may see a small sensor attached to the shell, don’t worry, it’s a wildlife tracking device to help biologists learn more and protect the species’ habitat.
Wildlife field biologists remind us to always check under our car tires and if we are in their domain because they often seek shelter from the summer sun in the shade below. If you see a desert tortoise, don’t pick it up and move very slowly so as not to disturb it. If you startle him or pick him up, he could discharge his bladder where he stores water, this is very bad. If that happens, you might be better off putting it in some water so it absorbs back into its system. And if you pick one up because it’s in the way, always put it back facing the same direction, otherwise it will become disoriented in its direction of travel.
Would you like to know more about having a pet turtle? If so, let me recommend you a very good book, it is available in digital or paper version, the name of the book is:
“Sulcata and Leopard Tortoises: Complete Herpes Care”, by EJ Pirog, TFH Publishing, Neptune City, NJ, 2008, 128 pages, (Digital eBook version) ASIN: B005KKODD4, ISBN: 978-0-7238-2898 -two.
In this work you can learn about many of the African tortoise species and the size of the egg-laying “nulls” and how many eggs they lay along with their habit needs, mating season, egg incubation time and what kind of predators try to get those eggs. Knowing what they eat is also very important. Most tortoises in arid regions are similar in nature, and be sure not to call them tortoises, as they are different. Please consider all this and think about it.