Tortoise adoptions up north close for winter
Tortoise adoption season is coming to a close in Northern Nevada, but there’s still time for Southern Nevada residents to take in one of the federally protected reptiles.
The nonprofit Tortoise Group has more than 100 pet desert tortoises in need of homes in the Las Vegas Valley, including about 50 of them that were just sterilized during a recent training clinic for veterinarians.
About a dozen vets from Nevada, California, Texas, Utah and Arizona took part in the first-ever clinic, held last week in Las Vegas, where they learned new tortoise sterilization procedures from the experts who pioneered them.
Nine of the tortoises operated on during the clinic are headed to Northern Nevada this week to be placed at homes in Reno, Carson City, Fallon and Hawthorne. Due to the pending change in seasons, these will be the last adoptions up north until next spring.
The Tortoise Group will hold three workshops this weekend in Reno, Carson City and Fallon to train new tortoise owners to care for their pets during the cold winter months.
At the southern end of the state, adoptions are expected to continue for a few more months, until the weather cools and tortoises begin to head underground to wait out the winter.
The Tortoise Group expanded its adoption program to Northern Nevada earlier this year because of the large number of unwanted pet tortoises in the Las Vegas Valley.
Unchecked breeding over the years has produced thousands of the animals, but it’s illegal to simply turn them loose into the desert because of the risk of spreading disease to fragile populations in the wild.
The sterilization clinic and a new state law limiting new owners to one tortoise per household are part of a growing push to halt the backyard breeding of the species.
More information about desert tortoise adoptions is available on line at tortoisegroup.org/adoption.php. Anyone with questions about adoptions or the group’s upcoming workshops up north can call 702-739-7113 or send an email to info@tortoisegroup.org.
Contact Henry Brean at hbrean@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350. Find him on Twitter: @RefriedBrean.
