Hidden in the tall grass was a tiny reptile, its shell marked with yellow star-like patterns—a clear sign it was a geometric tortoise, a species found only at the southern tip of Africa. “It’s an adult female, you can tell by its flat belly,“ said Esther Matthew, the dog’s handler and a conservation officer for South Africa’s Endangered Wildlife Trust.
The species’ population was already as low as 1,500 individuals in the wild in the early 1990s, according to biologist Andrew Turner, who works for the conservation authority Cape Nature. It is now estimated at only several hundred animals with “declines pretty much across the entire remaining range of this species”, he told AFP.
Poaching—of the tortoises and the plants they feed on—is also a threat, Turner said. “They are down to such small levels that they actually need as much assistance as they can get,“ he said.
To save the species, the Endangered Wildlife Trust has looked at building “partnerships” with landowners and communities living in the animals’ habitat. “The biggest thing is... creating corridors where species can work through,“ explained Zanne Brink, who leads the organisation’s dry lands conservation programme. - AFP
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