Padlopers: Breeding for the Future of the Parrot-Beaked Tortoise

Transcript

Wendy:
[0:23] Thank you, Dirk Barnard, for joining me to talk about breeding the parrot beak

Introduction to Tortoise Conservation

Wendy:
[0:27] tortoise or common padloper. Dirk is the founder of the Tortoise Conservation South Africa and recent keynote speaker at the 2025 TTPG Conference. We’ll go over everything you need to know from egg laying to hatchling care. So normally I would ask if this species needs to be kept and bred more in captivity, but I think we know the answer to that. They really do.

Dirk:
[0:51] Yeah.

Conservation Status and Challenges

Wendy:
[0:52] As far as their status in the wild they’re under a lot of threats and they’re extremely rare at least from my opinion i really don’t know a lot of people that have them even in their native country there aren’t a lot of people keeping and breeding them.

Dirk:
[1:07] Yeah so you know some of the guys keep these species but i always wonder on the one side why they don’t want to obviously there’s a private part where you know people just don’t want to, disclose what animals they have, where they live, what they drive, what they do, how much money they earn, those kind of things. And I respect that 100%. What bothers me slightly is if people don’t want to disclose where the animals came from, not your breeding stock, original breeding stock. I mean, if it’s F2 or F3 babies, it’s something different. But the difficult thing is, I know in Europe, they had this issue a couple of years ago. I think they were standing on 216 specimens.

Dirk:
[1:53] But, the original breeding stock was two males and two females. So, you know, that’s not helping conservation at all. But if there were people that did have F1 babies, for instance, that could actually supply them with new genetics, you know, for me, that’s the proper way of conserving species. You know, Namibia is the biggest country in the world with cheetahs. And, you know, So genetic diversity even in the wild is quite thin with them. So it’s a constant need of supplying new bloodlines. And that’s the one thing that I’d like to see change at least in the U.S. With the ESA listed species. You know, if I were to say, you know, the sad thing is I’ve got some of my friends in the U.S. For instance, have said that they would gladly give me species like Galapagos tortoises. Not once asking any form of currency. So, I mean, that whole fact of people just breeding to make money, that goes out the door completely. In some cases, them actually saying that they’ll sponsor out of their own pocket, not their nonprofit, from the private sector, they’ll sponsor the shipping to me. But again, it’s no use because of ESA.

Wendy:
[3:06] It’s just not doable. Yeah.

Dirk:
[3:07] It’s just impossible.

Wendy:
[3:08] Yeah. And, you know, your example of that many babies from, did you say two or was it four founder animals?

Dirk:
[3:17] Two males and two females.

Wendy:
[3:18] Okay, so you’re just creating a giant genetic bottleneck and anything that’s recessive in those animals is going to come out. And you’re right, that doesn’t help the species at all.

Dirk:
[3:30] Yeah, on the one side, you’ll have ignorant people saying there’s enough in captivity of a certain species, but there’s enough in that regards, but they’re all basically related.

Wendy:
[3:42] Yeah.

Dirk:
[3:42] And if you could, for instance, get in two or three males and, you know… Guy number one can have them for a year or two and breed. Guy number two can

Genetic Diversity in Breeding

Dirk:
[3:52] have them, and then you can switch them over. And then at the end of the day, everybody will have not only clean genetics, but different genetics.

Wendy:
[4:02] Yeah, more diversity. So how long is it for these guys? Is it age or size-based until they’re reproducing?

Dirk:
[4:10] It’s interesting. With my first females, you know, I just thought they’re not up to size yet because they basically, it’s not a very big tortoise species and it’s about three quarters the size, but it’s about half the weight of a normal, you know, active laying female. And yeah, I honestly didn’t think that that female was big enough to lay eggs. And she did. I mean, she popped two eggs out. She was just under four years old.

Wendy:
[4:42] Oh, that’s quick for a tortoise.

Dirk:
[4:44] And again, this is one thing that I do not do is I do not over supplement my animals. I do not give them high protein diets. I do not try and power feed them. So I was quite surprised, you know, as a species that you raise from birth or from hatching, you know, they do eat quite a lot. And obviously the higher temperatures the more higher the temperatures the more they will eat.

Hatchling Care Practices

Dirk:
[5:12] And yeah i mean in the i did a few experiments in the beginning the first month or so of the after they’ve hatched i do soak them every single day i know some people are completely opposed to that um yeah with the looser stools and all that and i’ve actually seen that it does give them less pyramiding it does help them because as soon as they obviously poop then they start drinking more, and if you do give them certain diuretic herbs like plantain and dandelion it also does help flush some of the toxins in their body but yeah like i say that’s a nice thing of of keeping reptiles you know i’ve seen some amazing animals while i’ve been here in the u.s i’ve seen many ways how different people keep them i may not necessarily agree with everything how they do and how they keep them but you know at least I know that’s how they’re doing it and at the end of the day if the species are breeding and they’re not pacing up and on in enclosures you know, surely it does say something about the husbandry that they are at least doing good.

Wendy:
[6:19] Yeah. And I think we talked about you do house your animals together. It’s two females to one male and then you’ll rotate the males. How many eggs do you usually get per clutch and do they lay multiple clutches?

Dirk:
[6:33] Okay. So they’re not as prolific clutch layers as what the angulets, the angulets are maybe like every six weeks. They will lay one or two eggs. The most eggs I have gotten from an areolitis female was five. Most books would say two to four. It was weird. One book I got at TTPG is a very old book and some of them have South African species and that specific author did mention five, which was very weird for me because it’s the first book I’ve ever seen that actually does say more than four. But yeah, incubation time, roughly the same as Angulets, 94 days i do prefer incubating and you’re gonna have to google search this but, 31.5 32 degrees celsius i think and then don’t quote me i think it’s like 92 degrees fahrenheit somewhere between 89 and 92 make us look it up yeah we’re.

Wendy:
[7:31] The the dumb ones using fahrenheit so.

Dirk:
[7:33] Your metric system something that really needs to change uh but yeah we’ll wing it do you.

Wendy:
[7:41] In the incubator are they in vermiculite perlite is it moistened is it.

Dirk:
[7:45] Dry yeah so i initially did try the route of you know putting them in damp vermiculite didn’t have that great success then i did actually it was quite a few years ago just put them in 100% dry vermiculite perlite and no moisture, anything, and just have a cup of water in the incubator. So it’s literally just a couple of heat pads in the incubator and a fan just for circulation.

Dirk:
[8:20] Can also have the other approach where you have a ceramic heat emitter in the in the incubator and also just a cup of water i would just always caution people if you use a ceramic heat emitter in an enclosure or in an incubator i know zoom in those companies or cadia also they have the little steel fitting that keeps the ceramic or steel bracket that keeps the ceramic fitting from touching any wood or plastic or anything like that that is one of the biggest causes of fire that I’ve ever seen and especially in something like an incubator that has got like a plastic kind of lining so the cheapest alternative to that and I call it the backyard South African method is basically just taking normal kitchen foil making sure that the reflecting side obviously points outwards fold it about eight times and just make sure that it’s broader than the bottom side of the ceramic fitting and you’ll feel that the incubator will get a little bit warm but it will definitely not get hot okay and i’ve tested it if i don’t do that then just don’t do it yourself but the incubator itself literally does start melting and that’s your first sign of the fire that’s going to start so that that little enough we can’t call it pluck and place That little DIY method definitely does help to prevent a fire.

Wendy:
[9:45] So you’re doing all perlite now?

Dirk:
[9:48] 100% dry perlite.

Wendy:
[9:49] Okay.

Incubation Techniques

Wendy:
[9:51] All right, and you said 90 days till they hatch?

Dirk:
[9:55] Yeah, about 94.

Wendy:
[9:56] Okay. That’s actually pretty quick, especially compared to like Redfoots, Yellowfoots. Do you leave them in the incubator for a couple days or are you pulling?

Dirk:
[10:05] Okay. So I let them hatch naturally and depending on the embryonic yolk sac, I’ll leave them two, maybe three days. I prefer taking them always out of the perlite because the perlite, because it’s dry, it’ll always just stick to them yeah so you can maybe just use a little spray bottle just spray them off lightly and put about two layers of paper towel just in an ice cream tub or something moisten it nicely and about twice a day i’ll just go look and see if the the bowl has dried out by any means and i’ll just spray take them out spray them off a little bit again and just put a couple of squirts of water back into the the bowl and now you’ll see it all absorb perfectly Okay.

Wendy:
[10:49] So once the yolk sacs absorbed, where do they go from there? Do you have like a juvenile setup?

Dirk:
[10:55] I do have a juvenile setup. Maybe it’s a psychological thing, but I still prefer keeping them just on slighter moist paper towel just for an additional two, three days. And then obviously that first two weeks is the more crucial time to just soak them every day. The last thing you want is that shell to get dry. And yeah if you want you can still put them in a tub and put a little lid over if you’re in a very very dry area but yeah soaking is completely essential for either the angulata or the areolatus that first two three weeks but yeah after that I some people don’t like coca husk I take about 40% coca husk and just mix it with a couple handfuls of play sand and then the rest this organic potting soil.

Wendy:
[11:46] Okay.

Dirk:
[11:47] And that is misted every morning. Some people don’t like misting, but I like misting.

Wendy:
[11:52] I do too.

Dirk:
[11:52] So misting every morning and just to counter the ambient humidity of a heat light. But again, it’s just for winter purposes that you actually do need heat. If it’s summer and it’s good, you do not need, at least for that first two, three weeks, you do not need to provide additional heat. But yes, I would definitely provide UVB. If you do provide eat it’s fine the main thing is just to have a dehumidifier right so they don’t dry out so it just basically pushes in some extra moisture and yeah it doesn’t dry out their shell and you’ll see that they also don’t dehydrate as quickly are.

Wendy:
[12:34] They eating what you’re feeding the adults do you just chop it finer or.

Dirk:
[12:38] Yeah so i thought it was for me it was absolutely out of this world going to to phoenix you know with a with a ttpg conference and it was actually in one of my talks and my friends taking me around to see different places as well and seeing the amount of south african succulents that is just randomly in phoenix and the guys don’t know south african succulents that’s that’s probably the best part for me but no it’s you know you guys for some reason call it elephant ear elephant ear is actually something completely different but again Americans no but the the plant I’m referring to is called speckworm in English it’s called elephant food tree it’s the plant that releases the most oxygen in the world and it is an extremely good feeder food for tortoises it grows extremely quickly you can literally make a few cuttings of put it in 50 potting soil 50 peat moss peat moss acidity will make sure the roots grow quicker and, it’s it’s a very good feed you don’t need to have it just as a supplemental feed but especially with that with a parrot beak tortoises so probably their three main succulents that they do like is eniums i did see a couple in phoenix as well yeah eniums spack bum and echeverias the, trying to think of their english name hens and chicks yes yeah.

Wendy:
[14:00] I know i can picture in my head what you’re talking about, but I couldn’t think of the name.

Dirk:
[14:04] So basically the same with a, and you know, the interesting thing about the succulents with the babies is the same thing that I’ve had with my radiators when they were younger. So many people would say, you know, supplement them with a pancha and I’ll give them a pancha and they won’t eat it. And then again, you’re getting back to the amazing sense of smell. If you cut the pancha up a little bit and they can smell the juice properly, all of a sudden they want to eat it. And I’ve tried it with a baby patliopers, you know give them succulents they don’t eat it cut it up a few times and the liquid starts coming out and they love it yeah i’ve had the same experience.

Wendy:
[14:38] If you give them a whole pad.

Dirk:
[14:39] A lot of times.

Wendy:
[14:40] They’ll ignore it but if you cut it into.

Dirk:
[14:41] Strips then.

Feeding and Nutrition Insights

Wendy:
[14:42] They’re going to go right for.

Dirk:
[14:43] It and that’s that’s the thing i actually missed to to say you know when i do give them mustard greens and stuff like that you know in south africa we we a puncher is actually listed as an invasive species so if we want to get in powder you have to somehow make it so i can either confirm or deny, if i make my own cactus powder but what i will say is if you can do it you only thing you need is a knife and a dehydrator or so the guy that does it tells me but yeah that is a supplemental feed that i’ll also put on the over the mustard greens and so on green frilly lettuce butter lettuce. Obviously, try and stay away from iceberg lettuce. But yeah.

Wendy:
[15:28] So I do want to mention for those in the US, I’m pretty sure Cappadola Farms has cactus flower, which i’m assuming is the same thing like.

Dirk:
[15:36] Yeah so andrew is a good friend of mine he’s actually one that hosted me in phoenix he also he also sells various dried fruits why am i running out english dried foods and it’s.

Wendy:
[15:49] Been a long day.

Dirk:
[15:49] So yeah so um he sells various dried plants but he also sells the the dried cactus powder and you know that that was the cool thing for me about this whole trip is actually seeing a lot of the stuff that i do a lot of people do to a certain extent and then just with maybe one or two of my adaptations their tortoises do better and yeah who knows next week if i’m back home with one or two of your adaptations my tortoises do better and that that’s for me is the the beautiful thing of the of the whole tortoise community you know you can be in your head you can think you know and and i’m again i’m not trying to put wood on my own fire yeah but many of my friends in south africa asked like you know are you looking forward to going to the u.s and you’re going to teach so many people on how to keep tortoises and my main thing was just like you know there’s a lot more people in in the u.s that are keeping exotic species and stuff than what we are and if anything it’s there’s a lot for me to learn from you guys and especially in the terrapin section i mean we’ve we’ve got a handful of terrapins you guys have got a hell of a lot of terrapins and then you’ve still got the exotic components as well, and using a lot of those examples and taking that back home I mean you guys have got so many other advantages that we don’t you know just, basic things of of choosing different products in a pet shop or access and cost and.

Wendy:
[17:17] All of that yeah.

Dirk:
[17:18] Yeah our import duties and those kind of things makes us little suffer a little bit but you know it’s even if even if you are registered non-profit you pay the same amount of import tax right so it.

Wendy:
[17:31] Doesn’t save you from.

Dirk:
[17:32] So it’s again when it gets to those people that say you know find it or there’s always another obstacle to cross.

Wendy:
[17:39] Yeah. When your UV bulbs that you need for all of your animals cost double or more, like, and we know how much they cost here. It’s not cheap.

Breeding Group Dynamics

Dirk:
[17:49] It’s literally double or more in South Africa.

Wendy:
[17:52] So take that times two and that’s what you’re looking at.

Dirk:
[17:54] Yeah.

Wendy:
[17:54] Yeah. So are you, when you move your babies into their kind of juvenile, are they in a group or do you keep them single?

Dirk:
[18:04] Yeah, so this is where it does get difficult, especially with a species like the Areolatus. You know, angular tortoises, they can at least be five, six years, and the males can still be together with their parrot beaks. It’s not like that. You know, as soon as they hit year by year four, then the males will start attacking each other. And, yeah, it’s not a pretty sight. you know there’s so many people that will always take something with a pinch of salt of like you know it’s not been documented or it may have happened or it’s not like people saying sharks will obliviously attack people it has happened so you can’t really say it’s gonna happen never happened yeah but with parrot big tortoises i can almost guarantee you 100 the males will fight one of them will get severely injured or one will die.

Wendy:
[18:56] So at what point do you start separating them?

Dirk:
[18:59] The males, year about year three, three and a half and they need to be completely separated.

Wendy:
[19:07] And so they’re not with females at that point. They’re just.

Dirk:
[19:10] No, it’s going to be a bit of a waste as well. I think they’re just going to be there for a good time and not a long time. So they, you know, it’s, they, they, they’d rather have to mature a little bit more and yeah, then I’ll rather just have the big, big male breeders. So weird saying big male breeders and it’s such a small, small daughter species, but yeah. So then they can either just chill outside. They do very, very well. You know, if you are in a winter rainfall, or at least I’m more in a summer rainfall area, but if you were to keep them more to the end side of winter outside in big meat crates, they do really well. The biggest provision is the substrate must not be wet and they must have plenty of shelter. So if it rains, you know, depending on the winter sun, it’s always different to the summer sun. You know, they do get a couple of hours of very good sunlight under the shelter of the patio area. But if it were to rain excessively, that they don’t get wet at all.

Wendy:
[20:13] And you did say a big thing with breeding these guys is do not keep them at a constant temperature.

Dirk:
[20:20] Yeah so the the the big thing for them you don’t you don’t need to in my opinion take the eggs out and you know with with radiators and that just and the signatus and with a pyxis you know you need a cooler and you need an incubator and a cooler so there’s no diapause or any so no you don’t need a diapause with them you can put them directly in the incubator but that’s for instance My, where I think the biggest focus is lost with a species, so many people are focused on breeding them to get eggs to put in the incubator, but then you have a very short lived expectation. Your main focus should be on supplementing them correctly, feeding them correctly, housing them correctly, and then most importantly, cooling them correctly.

Wendy:
[21:06] So giving them that.

Dirk:
[21:07] Because without that, you’re not going to get fertile eggs.

Wendy:
[21:09] That nighttime temperature drop. Because I think a lot of, you know, and same with my animals here, like, we don’t ever drop below like 68 in the house. And, you know, if they’re looking for that, they’re probably never going to produce for you.

Dirk:
[21:26] I think my wife will want to live in your house. She always complains about the cold.

Wendy:
[21:31] So my husband does not like the house below like 70, 72, which is, we call him our lizard.

Dirk:
[21:38] He’s he’s very much my wife is when the when the sun is slightly ouch she’s on the patio soaking up the rays that’s probably why we’re such good i’ve even said you know sometimes in winter i’ll maybe just put it under one of my basking lights.

Wendy:
[21:56] Might make you feel better.

Establishing Breeding Programs

Dirk:
[21:57] You got the winter.

Wendy:
[21:57] Blues and get a little uv all right so basically if someone’s really interested in these and they want to start breeding them, at this point, you really can’t get them. You can’t go buy them online. You can’t get a breeding group. So, Where do we start? Like if we want to establish them in the US, how do we do that?

Dirk:
[22:25] My main remark on a question like that, it’s a million dollar question. Everybody always asks for it, but it’s not something you can always give a quick answer on.

Stud Book Initiatives

Dirk:
[22:38] In my mind, at least, I would at least want to see somebody start up a stud book in the U.S.

Wendy:
[22:46] Okay, with what’s here, you mean?

Dirk:
[22:49] Yeah, because let’s face it, you know, the whole controversy, to a large extent, with what CITES is doing, it’s not effective. You know, your ESA, it’s not effective. I would much rather see it in the hands of keepers that actually monitor everything to a T. Species are brought in, DNA analysis are done, you can see this male is that male, that one’s from that group, and then you can see there’s maybe five different guys that are also interested in potentially getting these species, but you make sure that none of them are crossbred with each other, or at least siblings aren’t crossbred with each other. So that’s all the kind of things that I’ll potentially be looking at in the future, and it’s one of the things that I struggle to, in a way, talk to people with, because my breeding group is not absolutely massive and I don’t have an English supply of these animals.

Wendy:
[23:45] Right.

Dirk:
[23:45] And then you’ll get people like, oh, I want two males and two females. I say, not for sale because I’m building my colony. Right. And then like, but it will give you a little bit more. And I’m like, no, at the end of the day, it’s funny that we talk. I chatted quickly to Chris Leon about and made a, just a snotty comment on, you know, Chris, let’s talk business, how much for Otis? And he actually said to me the amount of people that have offered him money for Otis and they don’t take no for an answer.

Wendy:
[24:18] That doesn’t surprise me.

Dirk:
[24:19] Yeah, so it’s, again, that’s what I call ego buying, but for me, you know, I’m not in it for the money aspect of the things. And this is where I’m opposed to ESA. If a guy like me were to say, listen, Wendy, start the stud book for Aureolitis in the US and you have different species that I like, then I’ll say, let’s take the commercial aspect out of it completely. We’ll just do a straight up trade. I pay the shipping to you, you pay the shipping to me. You know South Africa controversially has a 30-day mandatory quarantine period but also I can sort that out but I just don’t want people to think at the end of the day that the reason why people are necessarily breeding animals in captivity is just for money and just for wealth and you know the amount of people that I that I met in the past few weeks most of them have a different job as well it’s not the only occupation that they have they may maybe advertise it but But if you chat to them, it’s definitely not the only form of income. And if they were to just do it on tortoises, it’s not sustainable that they can’t make a proper income.

Wendy:
[25:33] Yeah.

Dirk:
[25:35] So, yeah. I mean.

Wendy:
[25:37] That’s kind of the whole point of the Colonial Propagation Program. That’s a TTPG program that’s a benefit to all members and is furthering the group’s mission to establish assurance colonies. And you’re removing the monetary.

Dirk:
[25:53] But I, again, I don’t want to be that guy, but in a way, I’m worried for you guys for that. Because, again, if you can get the main people that are running the organization and they can get one or two additional males in for that project, surely it’s much better for the species. Because you are already established working with, say, for instance, the Galapagos tortoise. And yes, there are a couple of them that are bred every year. But if you could get one or two external males in again and diversify that blood range further. And, you know, if there’s 50 recipients in the past five or so years, you can for each 50 of those recipients give one or two extra babies. And you can obviously mark them with different cutex and colors and you can know which one is which.

Wendy:
[26:42] Yeah i mean we we may get to a point where we’re needing to move animals across and not just think like u.s.

Dirk:
[26:49] Think yeah expand world yeah and this is this is the sad thing with i mean i know various guys that one i mean me inclusive that would very much like to open a facility that’s focused not only on conservation but captive breeding as well and then many guys that can help me out with a species that I’ve always been wanting to work. I mean, this tour, believe it or not, it’s the first time I’ve ever in my life seen a Galapagos tortoise.

Wendy:
[27:17] They definitely leave an impression. They’re incredible.

Dirk:
[27:20] So yeah, now this whole dream of me being a little boy and I’ve actually seen the animal and touched the animal that I want to, but it’s like a reality that’s short-lived because I can’t work with a species.

Wendy:
[27:32] Yeah, that there’s no way, I mean.

Dirk:
[27:34] And then you speak to other guys and they’re like, Last year, we bred 100 of them.

Wendy:
[27:39] We saw how many of them in a pet store today, right?

Dirk:
[27:43] But I just can’t work with them.

Wendy:
[27:46] A lot of people think about, like, you literally cannot get that species. There’s just, yeah.

Dirk:
[27:52] So it’s, again, basically like you just said, you can’t get areolatus. I can’t get Galapagos. Right.

Wendy:
[27:59] So it’s the same. Yeah, exactly.

Dirk:
[28:02] But if ESA were to change, there’s a possibility we could help each other.

Wendy:
[28:06] Yeah, and I know USARC is working on that for us to at least… Yeah.

Dirk:
[28:11] It was one of my questions at TTPG when Anthony Pierlioni had his chat. I’m just optimistic on the one side. Well, you don’t have much choice other than not to be. But yeah, I was just blown away with, you know, so many of the guys that how I seen, I mean, obviously the first day I went to James Badman’s place, the animals that he has is something different. And obviously I did get to see an armadillo. So I’m a little bit irritable because my friends didn’t let me know that an armadillo does stink that much. I only had one jacket with my non-profit stitched on and I was typical tourist had it with its sweat glands and everything over me taking nice. So I got some nice photos, but I just didn’t smell nice for the day.

Wendy:
[29:04] So another thing I thought of, is there anyone else breeding the species? Like, is there a group in Europe or… Anywhere else that you know of?

Dirk:
[29:12] Yeah, so the Homopus Research Foundation, they are breeding the species, but it’s also under the provision that it’s for Europe.

Wendy:
[29:22] So no movement in or out?

Dirk:
[29:24] Yeah, so I mean, the one thing that I like about my country specifically is perseverance. No matter how difficult your government will make it for you, somehow we always try and persevere. I mean, our rugby team is probably the best example of that. And, you know, at the end of the day, I think if USARC were to get some of these things overturned and some of the different countries and organizations can actually chat to each other, and, you know, we can even say, you know, we’re going to do genetic testing, we’re going to have DNA analysis done. There’s no way that you can say that these animals are coming from the wild or they were smuggled. Everything was done above board ethically. We can make provisions that you must have a non-profit or that, for instance, I’m just going to objectively push this in, but that a certain percentage of your profits of that species were to go to that species in the wild. But yeah, I mean, there’s so many different possibilities, but at the end of the day, if we’re just going to sit and say somebody else is going to battle it out and we’re not going to do anything i don’t see anything happening.

Wendy:
[30:37] So that kind of makes sense for you building up a colony now because if the laws can get worked on and we can work something out like you know having something where if they can come here above board legally captive bred and people here can start breeding them. I don’t know how you would enforce it, but saying, you know, a percentage of all your sales goes back to, goes back to the mother country where you’re saving them there. I, I would hope that a lot of people would be into that.

Dirk:
[31:12] Yeah, but I mean, if you’ve got a mediator, if the person, for instance, running the stud book and he controls what’s basically happening, and then you’ve got a chairman that runs the funding aspect of everything, and you just say, let’s take 10% of total funding that’s registered for the nonprofit. And yeah, then that can be allocated to any form. I always tell people, you know, everybody always thinks it’s me trying to market my own non-profit. I really don’t care. It can go to any other non-profit that’s directly affiliated with Chilonian conservation in the country of the origin of that tortoise.

Wendy:
[31:48] I think that a big argument that you hear is that captive breeding does nothing for wild populations.

Captive Breeding vs. Wild Conservation

Wendy:
[31:55] You hear people say that all the time.

Dirk:
[31:57] Yeah, so controversially, it was a South African as well. I don’t know if you know what a spix macaw is.

Wendy:
[32:03] Yes.

Dirk:
[32:04] So that whole project in Brazil was run by a South African.

Wendy:
[32:08] Oh, I did not know that.

Dirk:
[32:09] And the video that he actually published on Facebook of the Brazilian authorities on their way without the correct evidence and all those birds were seized. And the last bit that actually did manage to breed in the wild were actually also caught and put back into captivity.

Dirk:
[32:27] And I always say to the greenies saying against captivity and against zoos what do they think of Dr. Jane Goodall Dr. Jane Goodall is probably one of the most respected conservationists ever to live and bless her soul she passed away this year if Dr. Jane Goodall says that zoos have a place in the world, I think they do have a place in the world. I agree with you. Again, I mean, I’m a plumber as a profession. At least half of my work is fixing another plumber’s work. So, yeah, I mean, with all mentalities and all different professions, you do get the rotten apples and you do get one or two people. I mean, in South Africa in the past week, we had somebody that was convicted that he may not have any pets again for the next 20 years. And the way I was keeping his animals, I don’t think it’s somebody that had any love or passion for animals. And that’s the kind of message that’s being sent that people that do keep reptiles, that’s what people obliviously think the reality is that how we keep our animals. I mean, whilst I’m here, I’ve got a pet sitter looking at my birds outside and my rodents outside. And my wife is looking after all the other animals. and you know it’s just basic

Future of Tortoise Conservation

Dirk:
[33:50] ethics and a will to succeed with the animals.

Wendy:
[33:55] Maybe it’s naive, but I’d really like to think that if there was a program set up, where you could be both breeding animals and sending money to help them in the wild, that most turtle and tortoise breeders would jump on that. I think it’s a really cool idea.

Dirk:
[34:12] Yeah, I mean, I did mention it, you know, not to be in everybody’s face at TGPG, And I actually didn’t get any backlash about it. Nobody said, you know, I think it’s a bad idea or anything like that. But, you know, if you’re working with testido species that, you know, if, for instance, working with like the Libyan species or something like that, and it’s not, maybe not a viable option at the current time with the current government or anything like that, that you just say, okay, well, then we’re just going to rather allocate it to another locality.

Wendy:
[34:44] Yeah.

Dirk:
[34:44] I mean, South Africa is not the only place area where you, for instance, get the homopus species in Namibia, you also get the solus. So yeah, I mean, then you can say you’re going to allocate the funds rather to another organization working with them in another country. But I would just like to effectively see a little bit more. But again, you know, at the end of the day, you’ve got more on your plate. But if you’ve got a chairman, and you’ve got somebody running the thing, and you want to work with certain species, these people can allocate funding

Key Takeaways and Closing Remarks

Dirk:
[35:16] to different organizations.

Wendy:
[35:18] Yeah, I think it’s great. So is there anything we missed talking about them?

Dirk:
[35:24] About the parrot beaks?

Wendy:
[35:26] Yes.

Dirk:
[35:27] Yeah, we’ve been talking about so many different things.

Wendy:
[35:29] I know.

Dirk:
[35:31] Yeah, number one thing, just diet, cooling, and just don’t keep two mouths together.

Wendy:
[35:37] Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. And for our listeners, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. If people have questions on anything that we talked about today, where can they find you?

Dirk:
[35:51] Yeah, so basically on Facebook, just Dirk Barnard or Tortoise Conservation South Africa in brackets TCSA. It’s my Facebook page or my email info.tortoiseconservation, one word, at gmail.com.

Wendy:
[36:05] All right. And I’ll make sure those are in the show notes if people are looking for you. Thank you so much. Cool.

Dirk:
[36:10] Thank you.

Wendy:
[36:11] All right.