Gopher tortoise now 'critically endangered', conservation group says

The International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the gopher tortoise as "critically endangered," a revised status from their previous classification of "vulnerable."

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, this status indicates that the species faces an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. An assessment of gopher tortoise populations, according to the IUCN, showed that there are none with increasing growth rates.

“Gopher tortoises are a very important species throughout the Southeast, and I am concerned about the connectedness and viability of their populations in the future,” said Leyna Stemle, Ph.D., a coauthor of the revised assessment. “The tortoises’ burrows support hundreds of other species that may depend on the burrow for their survival, such as gopher frogs. Their populations are becoming more and more fragmented, as well as smaller, due to habitat fragmentation and loss with growing human populations and urbanization in the Southeast. This fragmentation leads to threats on long term viability of populations.”

Many threats have impacted gopher tortoises, including habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, disease and exploitation, the Center for Biological Diversity says. They're also considered vulnerable to human threats because of certain characteristics of their species, including delayed sexual maturity and high levels of nest and hatchling mortality.

Gopher tortoises are considered a "keystone species" by scientists due to the critical role they have to play in their ecosystems. These tortoises aerate soils when they dig burrows and increase the plant diversity of their areas when they forage on plants and disperse their seeds.