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Voices of Arizona: Arizona Game and Fish has 120 desert tortoises up for adoption

Tegan Wolf is the Desert Tortoise Adoption program coordinator with Arizona Game and Fish.
Kathy Ritchie/KJZZ
Tegan Wolf is the Desert Tortoise Adoption program coordinator with Arizona Game and Fish.

It’s a cool and windy day at the Arizona Game and Fish’s Wildlife Center in North Phoenix.

Tegan Wolf is looking at a medium-sized desert tortoise who slowly crawled out of his burrow. “Yeah, hi!” she says, smiling. Wolf is the Desert Tortoise Adoption program coordinator with Arizona Game and Fish.

Not many desert tortoises are braving the cold on this day.

“He’s nodding his head up and down,” I say.

“Normally, that means that that’s an aggressive, but they’ll do it to us,” she reassures me.

“But if we go in there and I start, you know, scratching his head and touching him and stuff like that, he’s not going to do anything.”

Wolf is giving me a tour of the Wildlife Center, which is home to 120 tortoises.

About 120 tortoises live at the Arizona Game and Fish’s Wildlife Center in north Phoenix.
Kathy Ritchie/KJZZ
About 120 tortoises live at the Arizona Game and Fish’s Wildlife Center in north Phoenix.

On this blustery day, she’s taking me around Game and Fish’s Wildlife Center in north Phoenix.

Wolf says there are close to 120 tortoises here, including several dozen teeny-tiny babies.

It is illegal to breed desert tortoises in captivity, but often owners don't know that and they end up with several hatchlings. There are a few dozen baby desert tortoises at the Wildlife Center.
Kathy Ritchie/KJZZ
It is illegal to breed desert tortoises in captivity, but often owners don’t know that — and they end up with several hatchlings. There are a few dozen baby desert tortoises at the Wildlife Center.

“Somebody had 20 and brought them in. So we took, we took those and I think she’s going to bring the adults in spring.”

But breeding desert tortoises is illegal, and you can be fined. Wolf says there are vets that will spay females.

This enclosure is home to a single desert tortoise. His owners had him for 30 years before they had to relinquish him due to a move out of state.
Kathy Ritchie/KJZZ
This enclosure is home to a single desert tortoise. His owners had him for 30 years before they had to relinquish him due to a move out of state.
Desert tortoises can share pens for about eight years. Then they have to be separated. Desert tortoises can become very territorial and fight. They also don't want to risk breeding.
Kathy Ritchie/KJZZ
Desert tortoises can share pens for about eight years. Then they have to be separated. Desert tortoises can become very territorial and fight. They also don’t want to risk breeding.

All of the tortoises here are up for adoption, and some make for good pets.

“Some of these guys will come to your back door, and they say knock on it,” says Wolf. “But they’ll use their little leg and just kind of scratch on the door. And some people will let them in — and they’ll come right in, and they’ll kind of hang out for a little bit.”

Or a lifetime. Prospective owners take note: these guys can live upwards of 80 years.

KJZZ senior field correspondent Kathy Ritchie has 20 years of experience reporting and writing stories for national and local media outlets — nearly a decade of it has been spent in public media.
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