Mojave desert tortoises, like this one photographed in April, are finding new homes across Utah.Even though 11-year-old Shelldon isn’t toilet-trained, is really messy, sleeps five months out of the year and has a foot fetish, his adoptive family in Kaysville still adores him.
Shelldon is one of many desert tortoises finding new homes across the state. The new digs come courtesy of the, which began in the 1990s after desert tortoises were listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act. “If you put them back in the wild, you run the risk of introducing diseases to the wild tortoise population like Upper Respiratory Tract Disease, which is similar to pneumonia and is very contagious,” she said. “So we don’t want someone releasing their pet tortoise back into the wild because it could potentially harm the rest of the population.”
For instance, she explained, desert tortoises can retain water in their bladder and reabsorb it to the rest of their body during really dry periods. They also have a very hard shell and thick skin to minimize water loss. To withstand the heat or weather the cold, they dig deep underground burrows, and they hibernate five months out of the year.
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