Northwest Florida is growing, and new housing developments are moving into sandy uplands that have long supported gopher tortoises. Construction crews clear lots, pour slabs, and frame homes in areas where burrows often sit just below the surface. As that development accelerates, scientists and wildlife professionals are trying to limit conflicts between construction and this state-protected species.
At a recent research symposium hosted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, experts shared how development and relocation are shaping the tortoise’s future.
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Dr. Neal Halstead is the Wildlands Conservation Director of Research and Lead Instructor for the Authorized Gopher Tortoise Agent training.
“There’s direct conflict then between soils that are good for tortoises to build in, and soils that are good for people,” he said.
That conflict often appears when crews discover burrows after work has already started. Halstead said preventing those situations falls on everyone.
“It really comes on the rest of us in the state to do the work, to make sure there’s good education to prevent these,” he said.
“These” are disturb site permits issued when protected burrows are damaged.
“They’re bad for tortoises,” he said.
Florida law protects both gopher tortoises and their burrows. Harming them without authorization can trigger fines.
Halstead said those violations are costly. “There’s substantial increases in FWC mitigation contributions,” he said. “That can be anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000 per tortoise estimated to be within the disturbed area.”
He also noted that work can be halted.
“They get a 28-day minimum stop-work order,” Halstead said. “So there are substantial project delays.”
To reduce these conflicts, Halstead and his team developed a habitat mapping model to flag likely tortoise areas before clearing begins.
“Our goal, then, was to create a new model that’s purposely overpredictive of where gopher tortoises might be,” he said.
The idea is to give landowners and builders a clearer picture of where tortoises could be, so surveys and permits can happen before equipment rolls in.
Gopher tortoise relocation
Relocation is another key part of the conservation framework. In Northwest Florida, several large recipient sites accept tortoises that must be moved from development properties.
Dr. Kevin Loope, a Research Scientist in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech, focuses much of his work on relocating tortoises in Florida.
“Mitigation translocation is a really important component of gopher tortoise conservation in the state, and this is not going away.”
Loope’s research examined health data from relocated tortoises and found that certain pathogens showed up more often after transportation and temporary holding.
“So that really does suggest an increased prevalence of pathogen post transportation,” Loope said.
While detecting a pathogen does not automatically mean disease, the findings raise questions about long-term monitoring and health protocols at recipient sites.
In Escambia County, those protocols connect directly to what property owners experience on the ground. Anna Hackney is an FWC Authorized Gopher Tortoise Agent and wildlife conservation biologist who works directly with landowners.
Hackney said development is intersecting with tortoise habitat across the county.
“I have been seeing overlaps in all areas, but the greatest acreage of gopher tortoise habitat being affected is in the northern and western parts of the county,” she said.
Those northern and western areas include sandy uplands such as longleaf pine sandhills and coastal dunes. Hackney advises landowners to learn the rules before clearing land.
“If you suspect a burrow on your property is occupied by a gopher tortoise, this information can help guide you in decisions such as getting a survey or explain why you might need a permit for relocation of any gopher tortoises on site before work is started, such as clearing,” she said.
She said local sites that take in transported tortoises use procedures to reduce disease spread among relocated animals.
“The recipient sites in the Panhandle monitor and control the spread of diseases in translocated tortoises by examining each tortoise received, performing a health assessment, then marking them before release,” she said.
As development continues across Northwest Florida, research, permitting, and on-the-ground conservation remain tightly connected. In places where sandy soils support both new construction and gopher tortoise habitat, those efforts aim to keep growth moving while giving this protected species a chance to survive.
