Padlopers: Small Tortoises, Big Conservation Challenges

Transcript

Wendy:
[0:23] All right. Today we are talking to Dirk Barnard, the founder of Tortoise Conservation

Introduction to Dirk Barnard

Wendy:
[0:28] South Africa and recent keynote speaker at the TTPG conference about common padlopers. And I’m going to let you say the species name because I’m going to screw it up.

Dirk:
[0:39] Homopus aureolatus.

Wendy:
[0:41] Thank you. Welcome Dirk and thank you so much for joining me today. You’re actually my first in-person guest. Can you tell me how you got started with this species?

Dirk:
[0:51] Yeah, it’s actually a weird story. You know, I was probably about six, seven there around. You know, we call the rural areas outside of our cities, townships and the nightclubs in those areas we call shabines and my dad had a company basically a vending company that they were to drop pool tables and jukeboxes in the shabines and yeah a couple of times they’ve they’ve been to the shabines and they were fully loaded with pool tables and jukeboxes and they’ll ask the locals you know we see you carrying a huge tortoise please just don’t do anything to it till next week and the next week they come and it’s just the shell that remains and so what they initially did was offered some money loaded up the tortoise took it home we actually doctored them a little bit look after them and it wasn’t up until about five or six years after that i actually realized that you need permits because tortoises are protected in south africa so yeah got my permits and was was able to keep them legally and yeah since then i’ve just always tried to be a little bit more cautious and

Natural History of the Common Padloper

Dirk:
[2:00] educate people on the vulnerability of these these animals. If it’s an animal that’s 60 plus years old, it’s three, four generations that is going to be wiped out to cook one meal.

Wendy:
[2:11] Yeah, that’s sad. Let’s take a quick look at their natural history. It’s always important to understand that before you try and keep an animal in captivity. What is their native range and what is the type of climate that they live in?

Dirk:
[2:27] Yeah, look, so the weird thing is I would say they’re most predominantly in the Western Cape. As you may know, the Western Cape is the biome that has… The most critically endangered biome in the world. Renosterfeld, there’s less than 4% of it left. It is the Cape Floral Kingdom. It’s the richest floral kingdom in the world, richest bulb diversity in the world, and we also have the most succulents in the world. So out of those, especially with the succulents, many of them are in the Western Cape. If we look more into the succulent karu, where they also occur, also a lot of different succulent species. Then if you go more to the easterly side of South Africa and the eastern cape you a small part of there you do find them northern cape you find them as well and the most interesting thing about these biomes is some of them have winter rainfall some of them summer rainfall some of them go below freezing point in winter and yeah some of them even flood in winter so very harsh conditions in one side and very nice conditions on the other side so and they also found along the coast so you know the the argument we had that you know they are very, arid species, even our semi-deserts and full-blown deserts, they do get quite a bit of humidity early morning. So that’s the other reason why you’ll see wild populations do not have predominant permitting.

Adaptations and Behaviors

Wendy:
[3:50] Do they deal with extreme heat as well in any parts of the range?

Dirk:
[3:55] Okay, so I’m not going to try and butcher your Fahrenheit conversions. I’d say in excess of 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Wendy:
[4:02] Oh my gosh, yeah, that’s very, very hot.

Dirk:
[4:04] And then obviously below freezing in Celsius.

Wendy:
[4:07] Which is 32, so that’s pretty extreme. Do they brumate at all if it’s very cold or if it’s dry?

Dirk:
[4:17] Yeah, so basically all reptiles are not full-on hibernating reptiles, depending on if it’s obviously snowing outside, you won’t see them. But they’ll be very opportunistic even in winter, as soon as the sun comes out and they can bake a little bit in the sun, they’ll do it. It was quite interesting to compare some of our tortoise species in South Africa. I mean, I was now at the Ashton Biological Preserve, comparing just a little bit, head notes with each other. On how the gopher tortoises actually excavate their own holes. And none of our tortoises do that. They make use of pangolin and artfark and porcupine and so on holes. And in many cases, you’ll see them, even with the Cape mole rats, they’ll use some of their holes, you know, with the areolatus being such a small species. A friend of mine actually, he takes his cell phone with him and has a connection with a little camera and a wire, and then he sets that down, and then he actually sees them, hunker down in that in the colder times so they actually do go in head first into their burrows and then as soon as you want to even try even with my captive ones if you’re just trying to move them to soak them or anything like that they basically push forward and they try and lock their legs that you can’t get them out probably something like a pancake tortoise yeah.

Wendy:
[5:39] Actually, that’s a good point. For people that don’t know, they’re one of the world’s smallest tortoises. Adult weight, is it like 150 to 300 grams? Does that sound about right?

Dirk:
[5:50] Females you know it’s it’s it’s weird you know even in the past few days when i ask people like do you think aldobras are bigger than galapagos because there’s that that divisive opinions yeah but again you know i’ve i’ve seen some of the areolitis that are considerably bigger than 300 grams but it’s just not the norm so many people ask me is south africa tortoises and they make a statement south africa tortoises are obviously much smaller smaller than the somalian ones and And it’s not 100% true. You know, now and then we do get an absolute massive mail. And it just looks historically inaccurate completely. But again, you go on what’s in the books and what’s in the data.

Wendy:
[6:32] Right.

Dirk:
[6:32] And if a random guy from South Africa tries to tell you different, you’re going to think probably he’s not telling the truth.

Threats to Tortoise Species

Wendy:
[6:39] Let’s talk about what threats they’re facing in the wild. What are the main things that they have to worry about at this point?

Dirk:
[6:45] Okay so you know no matter what you see on social media there’s there’s always, i always use the analogy that you know people that aren’t in wildlife conservation have the have the most to say about wildlife conservation and you’ll get so many different news reports and so on on on why animals are facing threats and stuff in the wild 100 the biggest threat to any tortoise species in South Africa is electrified fencing.

Wendy:
[7:16] I don’t think a lot of people are aware of that. They’re going to say poaching.

Dirk:
[7:20] Yeah, so, you know, poaching definitely has, is a factor. Petraeid is definitely a factor. But… Effectively if you look at the amount of animals just the mass amount you know a lot of people would say for instance that feinbors you know some of the guys that may appreciate a little a little bit more that that for instance farm with pratias, pratias germinate better when they expose to smoke. For many many years many people have believed that once every five years pratia farms and feinbors need to be set alight and it’s 100% not true. They’ve done new studies on it. If you do it anything between 25 and 30 years, every 25 and 30 years, your germination is still very good. What does happen is cigarettes and stuff being thrown out of windows. And in many cases, arsenic fires are started.

Dirk:
[8:19] Don’t quote me on this. I think it was 2013. In the West Coast, there was a huge fire. The estimation was over 100,000 angular tortoises died in that fire.

Dirk:
[8:30] And that is why I, for instance, believe that the angular tortoise, believe it or not, is currently the most under threat tortoise species in the Western Cape. Their numbers are much more than what other tortoises are, but if you look at the amount of babies hatching in comparison with the amount of adults that are dying on the roads or with electrified fencing. And other than electrified fencing I would say second apart maybe not in comparison with fires but is pite crows and white necked ravens who are not becoming migratory birds anymore the University of Cape Town did a study a few years ago of the average mean temperature in Cape Town if you take summer and winter combined get about 17 degrees celsius that’s within about 0.2 degrees celsius of the preferred temperature that crows like breeding in the wild There’s obviously roadkill, Obviously the city is expanding more and more, the rubbish dump sites are getting bigger, continuous and endless supply of food and the issue is that their chicks are becoming more and more adaptable to learn how to predate these animals and to get on that many people would say it’s only the small species that are affected like the areolitis. I’ve personally been close to the West Coast National Park on a game farm where a pied crow pecked off the head of a fully grown adult angulate female tortoise.

Wendy:
[9:55] If I’m remembering correctly, I think the California desert tortoise is having problems with ravens as well.

Dirk:
[10:02] Yeah. So the one thing, and so many people will have these kinds of questions of, why aren’t you just buying the things that you need? And why aren’t you just at the end of the day doing more? And we all know with any nonprofit, your biggest threat is always funding and those kind of things i’ll never say that my biggest threat is initiative or having a will to work but at the end of the day somebody has to pay for these kind of technologies i know for instance in california what they have done and i have actually started getting quotes for that is to 3d print fake tortoises and lace them with a grape vinegar or something that’s very bitter yeah and as soon as the the just trying to think you i think you guys are ravens just I’m just trying to think of a more American term. Yeah, so when the crow or raven does puncture that shell, then it obviously teaches them this is extremely bitter. It’s not a nice thing to predate on. And, yeah, everything is cool ideas, but at the end of the day, everything costs money.

Wendy:
[11:08] We just need to get people with 3D printers crowdfunding and sending you tortoise.

Dirk:
[11:14] Yeah, I’ll take it with an open hand. You know, our government will most probably also impose a 30% import tax on it, like they do on all the kind of products that we get externally. But, you know, that’s life.

Wendy:
[11:25] So you said electric fences are a big problem, some poaching, obviously predation is a big problem. I know the IUCN listed them as least concerned with their last assessment in 2017. So I’m assuming that maybe they need a new assessment. Sounds like they’re in more trouble than we think they are.

Dirk:
[11:51] Yeah so the assessment you’re referring to they actually published a book about that i’m talking on recreation i think it was 2023 that book came out i do have a full copy of it it’s a massive book but to be honest a lot has happened since 2017 the amount of developments even just around my city and the again the threat with this is the focus is

Conservation Challenges

Dirk:
[12:16] more on plants the focus is much less on reptiles. I always find it strange that people are in so many cases so in love with cats and dogs just like me and you but for the same time, I always say, what about the little guys?

Wendy:
[12:33] Yeah.

Dirk:
[12:33] You know, that’s where I came with this passion for Chelonians and chameleons, because at the end of the day, those two are the species for me personally that are the most vulnerable in South Africa. And there’s also a lot of stigma around it, you know, of in many African cultures, they believe that chameleons are deadly toxic if they bite you, or if you have a tortoise on a chain at your house, that it keeps spirits away. And it’s those kind of educational talks that we need to have with a broader public and teach them that, you know, just because your grandma said something 50 years ago, it’s not necessarily correct. And that’s, I mean, if we just look at common things, I mean, in the 1950s, you could buy lion cubs in London and it’s just, you know, cultures adapt and we have to be the guys that at least try as conservationists to spread the correct message and to educate not only adults, but the main thing is to focus on children and educate them that we need to protect these animals that if they actually want to see them in the next generation.

Wendy:
[13:43] Are they kept as pets in your area at all? Or is it you fighting the good fight and no one else keeps them?

Dirk:
[13:52] So look, there are, I would say probably in my province there’s probably, Less than 10 people.

Wendy:
[13:59] If it’s that much.

Dirk:
[14:01] That keep them. In my country, obviously, a little bit more. But the big thing for conservation, if it’s like these, you know, it’s very similar to what you have in the U.S. You know, if somebody in Texas were to, and you must correct me, it’s the Texas desert tortoise. If somebody were to try and save them like i’ve been told relocate them or as soon as they hear that there is development that’s been approved and again don’t quote me on it but as far as i know a friend of mine mentioned you if you wanted to do it and remove them from an area where they obviously will die out or they will be bulldozed that it’s five hundred dollars per tortoise that they do relocate now in South Africa in many cases your challenge like this would be and obviously at the end of the day you know as people that you guys have in my opinion a prettier word that you use than conservation and preservation that you just off get the idea that you’re trying to preserve conservation efforts and obviously the diversity of species but you know the the big thing for me is when you’re working with these kind of animals and it’s in very limited numbers and very few people are doing it, you know, There’s so many people that are opposed to people keeping reptiles, but where do you think the African animals that you have in your zoos here are coming from?

Wendy:
[15:27] Yeah.

Dirk:
[15:27] They come from my country. I know most of the people that supply them to your country. You know, it’s not like there’s just a little factory that these animals are coming from. And the issue that I have is if there’s less and less people in my community, and I fully support that it should be regulated with permits and all that, but at least you need to give the people the opportunity to be proven wrong. And if three different people are working with them, every few years I can change out one of my males with one of theirs and at least then you have clean bloodlines and good genetic diversity in your breeding group.

Wendy:
[16:04] Yeah, and the more people you have doing that, the better as far as diversity goes. Yeah. I’m assuming that they are not being imported to the U.S. or other countries at this point?

Dirk:
[16:16] As far as I know, there has been two imports in the past 18 months into the U.S. with areolitis.

Dirk:
[16:24] You know, at least the one good thing is, you know, pre-2004, you could still actually legally export some of the wild-caught animals out of South Africa. The U.S. And many other countries actually did receive some of the stock. Most of them did not make it. and what I at least try and do in building my network is at a later stage when I have more stock is to try and have conversation with zoos and people that are willing to have stud books and that is to reach out to them and say I will be willing to supply you with species and in the end of the day it’s not ego buying it’s actually supplying somebody with new genetic diversity they can supply me with other species and you know the one nice thing at least is you can keep the the species that you’ve always wanted to do you can keep it with a good conscience clean conscience but at the end of the day you are helping the species the the only other thing and i and i did mention this in my talk which might be slightly controversial what i would like to see, at least in the pet trade, is that if we were to work with different species, and say, for instance, I work with Pyxis arachnoides, or whatever the case is, it’s an endangered species, it does make things difficult if you work with certain governments like Madagascar or South Africa, where they promise money will not be filtered out, and it does.

Dirk:
[17:48] That it’s a registered organization, a registered NPO, and if you make $500 in one year, selling tortoise species, that 5% of that money gets allocated to that non-profit and that it actually directly goes back into wildlife conservation in the wild.

Wendy:
[18:06] Preserving land or, yeah.

Captive Care Insights

Wendy:
[18:10] All right, so let’s dive into captive care. Do you find them hard to keep, or would you say they’re kind of like a beginner species?

Dirk:
[18:19] I wouldn’t necessarily say they are a beginner species purely because of their diet, but I would say that they’re easier than the angular tortoise to keep, and they are less susceptible to MBD.

Dirk:
[18:32] So, yeah, they’re the biggest thing, and I’m obviously very appreciative of the, fact that I could visit your country and see a diverse range and especially the terrapin species that you guys have that’s much bigger than ours but for me always the the big thing with these tortoises is a diverse diet that’s what I like for instance with capadola farms that if you buy products from them they have a whole list of different products you can buy it’s not like a Missouri type pellet where it’s just one staple and that’s it you know some days you can give a little bit more hibiscus then you could give plantain a little bit more stinging nettle that you give hibiscus you know it’s proper very diet the one of the big things is succulents should be a part of their diet and i think this is where people start to to lean a little bit away from reality if i can call it that you know a lot of people are opposed completely to carbohydrate rich diets which i’d agree to to an extent but a lot of the succulents that we find are quite rich in carbohydrates and it’s something that they do need in their diet and require, so yeah i mean there was a couple of things i did wrong in the past i don’t understand why they’re not breeding temperature was one of them moved to a new place room got very very cold below 15 degrees.

Dirk:
[19:54] Sorry, below, it was about five degrees in winter. I know for you guys in the States, you’re not going to be able to fathom that with your central eating and all that. And then obviously adjusted the diet that it’s more suitable to what they get in the wild. And fertility, everything went up. And today they’re breeding quite rapidly.

Wendy:
[20:13] Do you keep them singly as adults or do you keep them in groups?

Dirk:
[20:17] Well, usually with my adults, my males are quite relatively well behaved. In the past I have had males that are not so LV8 so I usually keep them in groups of two females and one male and then just occasionally then I rotate the males and yeah nothing nothing too special but I’d say probably the most important factor with that in some cases they’ll only lay eggs if there is an overhang of slate or stone or something they want that cover for their eggs and and they’ll feel secure laying under it. Sometimes they don’t lay. I mean, I’ve got a female that’ll only lay under the slate, and I’ve got another female that’s opportunistic. Sometimes it’s completely in the open. And I think it’s also to do with a predatory threat.

Dirk:
[21:07] But more interesting than that is if there’s a felt fire, many people will always say afterwards, the animals has no chance in hell that they could live. And then you go afterwards and a couple of them have survived because they’ll literally nestle themselves under the thick brush but under a huge mass of boulder. And the boulder will absorb most of that heat and the bottom part will not obviously be past boiling point. But in some cases you’ll see the keratin is a little bit damaged. It’ll look more brown and in some cases it’ll start literally peeling off. That’s perseverance.

Wendy:
[21:48] Do you keep them outdoors or indoors? Or do you do rotation?

Dirk:
[21:53] Okay, so with all my smaller ones, even with angular tortoises as well, I keep them indoors at least the first three years of their life. In winter and in summer, dependent on the weather. Like I mentioned, the Western Cape can be diverse. It can look very nice and sunny in the morning and rainy in the afternoon, especially in my area. So I will have, I find the easiest thing is to have very large meat crates and you can carry that in and outdoors. The most important thing with that is obviously not to have too much sun and too much water. So always have a proper shelter over the meat crates. And also very important is have a couple of holes drilled in that meat crate. So if you were to just go out for coffee and something and forget about,

Enclosure and Environment

Dirk:
[22:43] them and it starts raining, you’re not going to have floating tortoises when you get back home.

Wendy:
[22:47] Yeah. And what’s the approximate size of their enclosures as adults?

Dirk:
[22:53] As adults, I’d say about two meters by one meter is probably the best that you, at least, that you can offer. And then just a lot of different little hiding spots. They do like little nooks and crannies that they can actually go in. And like I mentioned, they do like going in head first and physically when you were to pull them out, they wedge themselves in. I always wonder how the heck they get out of it because it looks like a very, very tight cramped spot. But yeah, nothing too serious or anything like that. Obviously artificial lighting, very, very important component. It’s something that I’m struggling to get sponsorship on. So if you maybe know of anybody that’s interested in that, they can hit me up.

Wendy:
[23:38] So you have UV and heat lights for them?

Dirk:
[23:42] Yes. So I’ve got on both the east and the west side of the enclosures, I’ve got a heat bulb. It’s interesting to see that predominantly the one side they just use for basking, the other side they use more for laying eggs.

Wendy:
[23:54] Oh, okay.

Dirk:
[23:54] Um, And, yeah, soil depth, you’re looking at about, I’d say in your terms, you’ll talk about five inches at 12 plus centimeters. And I mean, it’s a species that the females rarely get above 11, 12 centimeters. So, yeah, that’s one of the reasons why I like keeping them indoors, not just for their size, but purely because of my area. Like I mentioned, my area, within 20 square kilometers of George, the city in the Western Cape, there’s no natural tortoise species found. It is predominantly wet. We’re at the bottom side of a mountain. Just on the other side of the mountain, closer to the Succulent Karoo, it is semi-desert area. So all the clouds hit that mountain and they don’t go over, so they stick over my house.

Wendy:
[24:44] So you get a lot of downpours.

Dirk:
[24:46] And it’s it’s more it’s it’s more just lower temperatures and very little uv and you know in the past i have tried it and then you get animals that lean more to respiratory infection obviously they don’t want to breed they’re not happy they get a little bit more lethargic they eat less and since i’ve moved them indoors you know the big thing is not to have them with overheated with lights twice a week just mist them lightly and i’ve got a fogger in my room just to raise the ambient humidity because i find that especially with with some of the countries that i’ve at least visited to see the husbandry that there’s so much focus on providing heat but it’s extremely dry heat um like desiccating yeah it’s like 100 watts on each side or 100 watts plus but there’s no form of you know in many cases the water bowl will be dry but they they literally did fill that water bowl a couple of hours back but it’s just so much evaporation so yeah i’d always suggest especially with your hatchlings with my hatchlings i’ve got heat lights but coupled to the heat lights and the timer is a fogger running, So basically from eight in the morning till seven or so at night, there’s a fogger running.

Wendy:
[26:02] I know we touched a little bit on diet. Do you do any supplements or pellets or anything like that?

Dirk:
[26:09] Interesting story. So I actually did experiment on all the different feeds. I did get in some Missouri pellets, specifically imported them. I did buy in Hikari’s tortoise pellets as well. There was another brand I tried I can’t remember what their name was but yeah you know it’s it’s like with anything even with certain children certain of them will like it some of them won’t at all and then I just started printing all the big companies in the world their commercial diets and trying to see what is in it why it’s in there and what benefit it actually does have to tortoises So, in the end, I did actually buy in all the different vitamins, amino acids, all that, and tried to formulate it all correctly. It was successful to a certain extent, and then I just decided to remove all the amino acids. You know, the plants have their natural amino acids, the natural proteins.

Dirk:
[27:08] And, yeah, if you look at folic acid and biotin, stuff that tortoises need, and you can supplement that to a very small extent. So I actually formulated my own tortoise diet with that. It’s basically seven weeds, dried dandelion, dried plantain, dried hibiscus, timothy hay, orchard grass, stinging nettle, mallow, marshmallow, rooibos. And I think that’s about it. But yeah, just to have long strand fibers in the diet, it’s not a powdered form. That’s what I struggle to understand with diets like Repashi. You know, it’s a powder form. You’re losing the long strand fibers and no tortoise blends their food before they eat it.

Wendy:
[27:48] They need that fiber.

Dirk:
[27:50] Yeah. And again, what I also do, I put, for instance, the Timothy Hay in a hammer mill with so many other guys in the U.S. I don’t think it’s a good enough excuse, and I’m stepping on toes. But it’s so easy to go to the store, get mustard greens and all those things. You can put it in a bowl, snip it up a little bit. I’m not saying everybody needs to have a hammer mill. I mean if you can get a company to hammer mill Timothy Hay and that for you if you got one or two tortoises it’s quite easy just to cut it up by hand cut it up in about half inch pieces and you can sprinkle that over the lettuce all know tortoises are obsessed with lettuce but it’s got very low nutritional value they got a very very keen good sense of smell so if you do put hibiscus powder a little bit on and you do put the dried Timothy Hay and orchard grass on you’re basically forcing them to eat like a grassland species is supposed to eat. So yeah, big focus for me is on diet and getting the correct roughage and everything in. And yeah, main thing, just make sure there’s enough fog in the enclosure and do not make the mistake of thinking that African species do not always need water at all times.

Wendy:
[29:08] Yeah, I think that’s something people do a lot. I mean, for the longest time with ball pythons, people were like, oh, they’re from Africa. You just keep them dry. And they do not do well when kept dry. They need that humidity. How active are your guys are they running around are they coming to check you out when it’s feeding time.

Dirk:
[29:30] So this is you know a lot of the things that i talk about is, self-taught over the years you know nobody nobody in the world’s going to convince me that a tortoise doesn’t have an extreme sense of smell if i for instance cut up greens and i put and it’s semi-wet, you know, the hibiscus fuses with the lettuce. And if I walk into that reptile room, it’s like two, three seconds and all the little tortoises are immediately like on the edge of the enclosure waiting like little dogs for their food. If I do it with most of the other feeds, they take a minute or two and take their time to actually get there. You know, like stuff like mulberry leaves, for instance, doesn’t give off that much of a scent.

Wendy:
[30:14] Yeah.

Dirk:
[30:14] And it usually does take them a while to get that sniff on and then they’ll come in and dine. But for me, it’s just extremely relaxing. I’m probably like a very old man in that regard, but waking up in the morning, making a cup of coffee and just looking at the, you can literally hear their little mouths crunch the leaves.

Wendy:
[30:34] It’s very zen.

Dirk:
[30:36] Yeah. Just need some incense or something running in the background.

Wendy:
[30:41] So we touched on this a little bit, I’m assuming that they are very expensive and almost impossible to get in the U.S. If you’re interested in them.

Dirk:
[30:53] Yeah, so again, you know, I’m always hesitant with saying things like these unless somebody actually asks me about it. So I’ve had it in the past where people say, you know, love the work you’re doing. You know helping tortoises in the wild helping tortoises in captivity with the knowledge is spreading and better for the community and it would be so nice if one day we could help you with the organization it’s just going through difficult time currently but and then like at the end of the conversation like two sentences later but if you are interested in selling you know we can offer you four thousand dollars per per areolatus actually and this is what what and And again, controversial opinion maybe to some, but this is what I call ego buying. You know, everybody is in that regard is so focused on having the expensive animals.

Wendy:
[31:46] That are rare and versus spending that money to help them in their country.

Dirk:
[31:52] This is why I want to, and again, it may be a controversial opinion for some, but that’s what conservationists try and do. We try and mitigate certain things. but over mitigate and that’s probably not the right English but English is my second language but yeah to try and at least have a certain fund funnily enough and it’s it’s so ironic you know lunchtime we just had a quick chat about this and.

Dirk:
[32:22] Just as I got into the room, I got a message from a friend of mine, and he’s opening a conservation center in South Africa, and he said, we’d love to have you on a display to market other MPOs, but what we’d like to do with the funding that we get in for the new wildlife area that we are creating, and it’s a semi-zoo area as well, is that 10% of our total profits goes to other non-profits. And they’d like to incorporate my non-profit as well as other ones in that and that’s exactly what I have but apart from that is to do it in specific areas if you look at Graeco and so on you know look at their locality if you look at Radiart or whichever species and you try and at least change in their natural habitat obviously in some cases it won’t be possible yeah I’ve tried you know working with guys with African cichlids some of the countries it’s just simply not possible the habitats it’s just not there anymore yeah and the last remaining of those species are in captivity so you know it’s going to be a much more tedious process to try and do that in some areas it’s so focused in that little locality that locality is totally overdeveloped and it doesn’t exist anymore yeah.

Wendy:
[33:34] Unfortunately that’s happening with a lot of, there’s nowhere for them to go back to even if they’re.

Dirk:
[33:42] Yeah so that’s that’s just my you know obviously if i was bill gates or somebody like that i would i would not have alternatives like these and i’ll just say i’ll fund it myself yeah but you know in in this way i just say in a much more ethical way you can still do your passion still follow your hobby and with a good clean conscience you can still say but i’m not just breeding animals i’m saving them in the wild as well.

Wendy:
[34:05] Yeah.

Dirk:
[34:06] So, yeah.

Ensuring Ethical Practices

Wendy:
[34:08] So, is there anything that we missed on captive care that you think people should know as far as taking care of them?

Dirk:
[34:15] Well, I think, firstly, your main thing should be, you know, for instance, a guy like me, if I breed them, I’ve got photos of my hatchlings when they are born.

Wendy:
[34:26] Okay.

Dirk:
[34:26] After a couple of months, I still have photos of what they look like. And I think, you know, to prevent these kind of things, if there’s any speculation of documentation being forged or anything like that then to counter that you can at least say listen the guy that I got them from 100% legal documentation is there babies are raised in captivity and you can count all those arguments to prevent these kind of irregularities but that is probably your biggest threat is getting a tortoise that could not be captive bred and they are going to really struggle to adapt into a smaller environment like i said mine love being in the enclosure i never see them stressed pacing up and down the enclosure but again in the past if i’ve done that with rehabilitation animals that first few weeks they are highly stressed they don’t understand why they’re there but at the end of the day you can’t release them because they are pathogenic so yeah it’s one of those tough tough things yeah.

Wendy:
[35:26] It is and, So if you happen to be lucky enough to come across them, I guess, you know, really do your due diligence as far as make sure they’re captive bred, right? Look, ask for pictures. Ask for the pictures of the setup and the babies and the parents and all that kind of stuff.

Dirk:
[35:45] Yeah, I mean, I’ve been asked by guys like this in the past. And, you know, I understand fully some people are just much more reserved. They don’t want to have people at their home and show all those kind of things. But at the end of the day, if you’re the person that’s advertising these animals, you know, just as, I mean, I’ve got a Sphinx cat and I’ve got a rescue cat. It doesn’t matter for me with both of them in both circumstances. The one is really cheap. The one is really expensive. But for me, both, I physically want to see where they come from, how they were raised, where they’re ethically raised. And yeah, that’s why I got both of them because everything, my due diligence was done and I was happy with all the circumstances.

Wendy:
[36:28] All right. Well, thank you, Dirk, for joining me today. And for our listeners, be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss our next episode. We’re going to be talking about common padloper breeding and hatchling care. If people have questions, where can they find you online?

Dirk:
[36:43] Okay, so my Facebook is just Dirk Barnard or you can follow my Facebook page, Tortoise Conservation South Africa, and then in brackets, brackets, T-C-S-A. Otherwise, they can email me on info.tortoesconservation at gmail.com.

Wendy:
[36:58] Okay. And you are a registered nonprofit. So if people want to donate, they can find you at those places, right?

Dirk:
[37:06] Yes, 100%.

Wendy:
[37:07] All right. Perfect. Thanks again.

Dirk:
[37:09] Cool. Thank you for having me.