Desert tortoise is an endangered species in California, so you are not supposed to take them as pets, but if they wonder around 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 quite a complicated endeavor. However, sometimes you can 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 the males and the females, and you can easily tell the difference. Males have a slit underneath that matches the shape of the female’s carapace 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 might 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 the tires of our cars 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 scare 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 gets absorbed back into your system. And if you pick one up because it’s in the way, always put it back facing the same direction, otherwise you’ll get disoriented in your direction of travel.
Would you like to know more about having a turtle as a pet? 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 -2.
In this work you can learn about many of the African tortoise species and the size of the egg laying “claws” and how many eggs they lay along with their habit needs, the mating season, the incubation time of the eggs and what kind of predators try to get those eggs. Knowing what they eat is also very important. Most arid region tortoises are similar in nature, and be sure not to call them tortoises as they are different. Please consider all this and think about it.