Under the unyielding desert sun, a quiet yet fierce struggle for survival is underway. Here, among the creosote bushes and shifting sands, the desert tortoise — one of North America’s oldest inhabitants — is vanishing at an unprecedented pace.
As a keystone species, the desert tortoise is vital to this fragile ecosystem. Its burrows offer shelter for countless creatures, and its slow but essential role in seed dispersal helps maintain the delicate balance of plant and animal life. Yet, with expanding development and shifting climates, the tortoise’s habitat is shrinking, while increased predation and human impact threaten its future.
Once an abundant but gentle presence, with an estimated 150 to 350 individuals per square mile in the 1970s, the desert tortoise population has plummeted to fewer than 10 per square mile as of 2019. This steep decline prompted the California Fish and Game Commission to uplist the tortoise’s status in 2024 from “threatened” to “endangered,” highlighting the urgency of its plight.
Now, The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens and its partners are working to change the odds, bringing a spark of hope to the beleaguered species.
Braving the Elements
The Living Desert is celebrated for its global conservation work, but its mission to protect the desert tortoise hits particularly close to home — and may be among its most critical.
“Sometimes people think of conservation as a distant problem somewhere else, but we have just as much of an issue with threatened or endangered species locally, right here in the Desert Southwest,” says Allen Monroe, president and CEO of The Living Desert. “One of the stories that ties our work together locally is the desert tortoise.”
For thousands of years, desert tortoises have lived in the Mojave, Colorado, and Sonoran deserts of Southern California, where their burrows inadvertently create safe havens for other species. By dispersing seeds and building burrows, they shape the landscape and support the biodiversity that sustains this delicate ecosystem. Without tortoises, these habitats would unravel, triggering cascading effects across the food web.
In recent decades, California’s state reptile has faced relentless threats from habitat loss, climate change, and, surprisingly, ravens — whose numbers have ballooned 1,700 percent in just a few decades thanks to human food waste. Opportunistic and intelligent, ravens find easy meals around restaurants and shopping centers, thriving on discarded food like french fries from open dumpsters.
Young desert tortoises are also on the ravens’ menu, with the small hatchlings — about the size of a pingpong ball — especially at risk. Born with shells that are too soft to offer any protection, hatchlings have no defense against a raven’s sharp beak. Fewer than 1 percent of hatchlings survive to adulthood.
“Hatchlings are sort of like a jelly-filled donut for a raven. Quick and easy,” Monroe says. “Of course, ravens are just doing what they’re supposed to be doing. But the tortoises don’t stand a chance.”
The Headstarting Solution
At The Living Desert, a creative solution is giving vulnerable tortoises a real shot at survival. Emily “Lou” Thomas, lead conservation biologist, is part of a headstarting program that began at Edwards Air Force Base in partnership with the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and the U.S. Geological Survey. By raising young tortoises in human-managed care during their most vulnerable early years, the program gives them a “head start” before releasing them into the wild.
“Research shows that the larger a tortoise is at release, the better its chance of surviving desert challenges,” Thomas explains. Each tortoise is carefully nurtured until its carapace measures at least 100 millimeters in length, a critical threshold for resistance to raven predation. Hatchlings are raised in temperature-controlled habitats with artificial burrows that mimic warm, natural conditions. They are also fed nutrient-rich diets to which, in conjunction with warm temperatures, accelerates growth beyond what would be possible in the wild.
“Every detail matters,” Thomas says. “We use natural substrates like river sand and rocks, so they get used to the terrain they’ll encounter outside. Each habitat has multiple burrows, with warmer and cooler zones to boost metabolism and growth, which is exactly what we need them to do.”
Through a headstarting program, lead conservation biologist Emily “Lou” Thomas helps to raise young tortoises in managed care to boost their odds of survival in the wild.
A critical transition phase follows. Once tortoises become sturdy enough, they’re moved into an outdoor rearing facility on Edwards Air Force Base to gradually acclimate to natural conditions while remaining shielded from predators. During acclimation, they learn to fear ravens and coyotes, their two most common predators.
Field researchers also study survival-enhancing habitat features, like optimal shrub cover and small mammal burrows, ensuring that when the tortoises are ready to be released, they go into well-suited environments.
If the tortoises do survive their early, vulnerable stage, they can live more than 80 years, making each and every hatchling a long-term investment in the species’ future.
“Getting tortoises to that size threshold where they’re less vulnerable is crucial,” says Katie Shaw, a conservation social scientist at The Living Desert. “But it’s only part of the solution. We also need to address the environmental challenges that threaten them, like food subsidies for predators, to ensure their survival in the long run.”
Talking Trash
Every morning, Rani Shama, manager of Yucca Kabob restaurant in Yucca Valley, watches ravens looping through the desert sky, diving through fields and hovering above parking lots. The birds have learned that restaurants and businesses around the Morongo Basin and other nearby areas provide easy meals from dumpsters.
“People think of conservation as a distant problem, but we have just as much of an issue locally with threatened species.”
Allen Monroe, The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens
That’s where the Time to Talk Trash program comes in, an initiative that connects The Living Desert’s conservation efforts directly with local communities. Through this program, the conservation team visits restaurants and businesses from Desert Hot Springs to Barstow, performing unannounced “trash audits” to check that dumpsters and bins are securely closed.
When dumpsters are left open, the team engages with managers and staff to explain how closing lids can cut off food supplies for ravens, a vital step in reducing the species’ population growth and impact on tortoises.
For businesses that commit to keeping lids tightly closed, there’s a reward: a “Gold Star” certificate, recognizing them as a tortoise-friendly establishment. Yucca Kabob boasts a Gold Star, alongside other local champions like Delicias Mexican Cuisine in Desert Hot Springs, Kitchen in the Desert and The Rib Co. in Twentynine Palms, and The Dez in Joshua Tree.
“Hopefully the people who eat at tortoise-friendly establishments will hear that message, and they can then go home and make sure that their own trash can lids are always kept closed,” Monroe says. “It’s a simple, effective way to modify human behavior for the benefit of the desert tortoise.”
The Living Desert’s team helps to hatch tortoise eggs seasonally, giving hatchlings a head start and a comfortable home as they figure out their place in the world.
Once deemed an appropriate size, they’re released to stake their claim in the desert sands.
Thomas with vice president of conservation Dr. James Danoff-Burg.
Slow and Steady
For Dr. James Danoff-Burg, vice president of conservation at The Living Desert, the hands-on work of raising tortoise hatchlings and revitalizing habitats is the “easy part” — the straightforward side of a more complex mission.
The real challenge, he says, is changing human habits, a task that requires sustained education to make conservation resonate beyond the zoo’s borders. The Living Desert’s educational programs target real-world impact, like reaching out to off-highway vehicle (OHV) enthusiasts to share how staying on designated trails protects not only tortoises but also the desert’s fragile ecosystem and their right to access designated trails.
“When someone goes off trail, they’re disturbing more than they might realize,” Thomas says. “That biocrust [the top layer of soil] holds critical microbes for plant growth and is a seed bank for future vegetation. Crushing it disrupts plant life, exposes seeds to herbivores, and even damages burrows and the delicate habitat tortoises depend on.”
Tire ruts add to the damage, redirecting water flows and depriving plants of essential moisture. Tortoises, camouflaged like rocks within the landscape, are also at risk.
“If they’re basking or moving slowly, they’re nearly invisible to a rapidly moving OHV,” Thomas points out.
The Living Desert’s broader education initiatives aim to inspire young people to see themselves as stewards of this unique environment. By building awareness from a young age, they hope to cultivate long-term advocates for our local tortoise.
“The unfortunate thing is that conservation isn’t a quick fix,” Monroe says. “There’s no finish line.” But much like the tortoise who triumphed over the shortsighted hare in Aesop’s fable, “We’re making steady progress toward a future where desert tortoises thrive.”
