As this keystone species' name suggests, the gopher tortoise is an expert at living underground — like a gopher. When these tortoises aren't industriously digging burrows to hide from extreme weather ...

A proposed housing development on the Treasure Coast is threatening to displace hundreds of gopher tortoises, and it may be part of a bigger pattern playing out across the state.

From there, the tortoise will di a tunnel where it will spend up of its life, only emerging to forage for food bask in the sun, or to mate. The gopher tortoise is considere a keystone species in ...

Federal scientists admit gopher tortoises are in deep trouble. A 2021 study by the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, the agency that administers the federal Endangered Species Act, concluded that by ...

The building boom is having a disastrous effect on gopher tortoises, a 60-million-year-old keystone species that is losing the battle over the same high-and-dry ground where people want to live.

Gopher tortoises are considered a keystone species of longleaf pine forests, though they can be found in other ecosystems as well. The tortoise’s shovel-like front legs are adapted to create ...

Nearly three-quarters of gopher tortoise populations could be gone by 2100, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the federal agency that administers the Endangered Species Act, reported in 2021.

According to the FWC, the gopher tortoise was listed as a “species of special concern” in Florida in 1979 and was reclassified as a “state-designated threatened species” in 2007.

State officials are investigating after numerous recent gopher tortoise deaths at a popular beach destination.

Gopher tortoises are a threatened species in Florida, and handling them without a permit is illegal. They are also considered a keystone species, meaning they play a critical role in the ecosystem.

Nearly 300 gopher tortoises will lose their homes if a developer is allowed to build a new Treasure Coast neighborhood atop nearly 600 burrows — which another 365 species depend on to survive.