For decades, Florida's booming development industry has relied on a controversial conservation strategy to protect one of the ...

Other than Gleason Park in Indian Harbor Beach, I don't see a lot of gopher tortoises where I live beachside in unincorporated Indialantic. So, you can imagine the surprise my wife and I shared while ...

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has published a new assessment that revises the gopher tortoise’s status from “vulnerable” to “critically endangered” on the IUCN Red List of ...

See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. A tortoise that was shot with a pellet gun, narrowly missing its heart, ...

Foresters take their responsibility to guard protected species seriously. When it comes to the gopher tortoise, a keystone species whose burrow provides shelter to more than 300 other types of forest ...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Gopher tortoises imperiled by loss of habitat largely caused by human development should be placed on the endangered species list in four southern states, environmental groups ...

Florida conservationists said they were blindsided by an executive order last month that allows developers to relocate threatened gopher tortoises anywhere in the state. The order issued Nov. 18 was ...

The fate of the gopher tortoise, Georgia’s state reptile and the only land tortoise in the eastern U.S., has worried conservationists for decades. Habitat loss and other factors have pushed ...

Gopher tortoises are a critical part of the Florida landscape. Native to the southeastern United States, they support more than 300 other organisms by building large underground burrows that protect ...

As one of Florida’s most valuable species and already threatened with extinction, gopher tortoises might have been dealt a blow by the state wildlife agency’s failure to oversee the program it set up ...

A Florida development boom has wildlife officials scrambling to find homes for the state’s gopher tortoises, a live-and-let live kind of reptile whose burrows are often on builder-sought land.