EUSTIS, Fla. – Butterflies move between flowers as wind chimes ring through the trees at the Trout Lake Nature Center.
Nearby, a three-legged gopher tortoise named Tripod slowly eats lettuce and berries.
The peaceful scene hides the injury that changed his life.
“He got tangled up on litter in the woods,” Trout Lake Nature Center Executive Director Eileen Tramontana said. “It cut off his blood circulation and got infected, and they had to amputate it.”
Because a gopher tortoise needs its powerful front legs to dig a burrow, Tripod can no longer survive independently in the wild. The nature center now uses him to teach visitors about the threats facing the species.
His story is one highly visible example of a much larger issue unfolding across Central Florida.
New data provided to News 6 by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission shows 6,976 gopher tortoises were confirmed relocated in Lake and Orange counties between July 28, 2021, and July 28, 2026.
Nearly all of them were moved off the properties where they were found.
By the numbers
- 6,976: Total confirmed relocations in Lake and Orange counties
- 6,818: Tortoises moved to off-site recipient properties
- 158: Tortoises relocated on the original properties
- Nearly 98%: Share of tortoises relocated off-site
- 4,656: Total relocations in Lake County
- 2,320: Total relocations in Orange County
The numbers include hatchlings, juveniles and adults documented through interim and final after-action reports submitted to FWC.
Spread across five years, the total is equivalent to nearly four gopher tortoises relocated every day in the two counties.
The data comes as the International Union for Conservation of Nature has reassessed the gopher tortoise from “vulnerable” to “critically endangered.”
The assessment estimates the species has declined by approximately 80% over the past 120 years—about three gopher tortoise generations. It also says no monitored population reviewed by researchers had a positive population growth rate.
The IUCN classification does not mean the species suddenly experienced that decline in 2026. The organization describes the category change as reflecting newly available information and reassessment rather than a sudden one-year population collapse.
Still, “critically endangered” means the species is considered to face an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild under the IUCN’s global criteria.
‘Very, very close’ to losing sustainable populations
Tramontana said she is seeing signs of the pressure locally.
“I’m seeing a lot of injured gopher tortoises,” she said. “There’s a lot more that are coming in. There’s less places for them to be.”
Roads, curbs, development and disconnected patches of habitat can make it difficult for tortoises to safely travel, find mates and reproduce, she said.
“I think we are very, very close to losing sustainable populations,” Tramontana said. “If the males and females can’t find each other, if you don’t have genetic diversity, you’re going to have issues with future generations—if they can even breed.”
Gopher tortoises are long-lived animals, but they take years to reach reproductive maturity. Their eggs and hatchlings must then survive predators, pets, roads and the continued loss of suitable habitat.
That creates a deceptive problem: Residents may continue seeing adult tortoises even when the population is no longer producing enough young animals to remain viable.
The international assessment similarly warns that the presence of long-lived adults can mask declining reproduction or reproductive failure.
The land tortoises need is also attractive for development
Gopher tortoises depend on elevated, sandy and well-drained land where they can dig deep enough to escape extreme heat, cold and fire.
That same ground is often attractive for construction because it is less prone to flooding.
“Lake County—Central Florida—is developing so fast,” Tramontana said. “Developers want the high, dry property, and that’s where a gopher tortoise has to be.”
Wet or low-lying land generally does not provide the same burrowing conditions or natural food sources, she said.
Development can also erase paths tortoises have followed for years.
“A lot of times when they’re seeing the adult turtles, they’re seeing them moving somewhere,” Tramontana said.
She pointed to the U.S. 441 corridor as an example of high, dry habitat increasingly divided by development and traffic.
“It got developed, and all of a sudden you’ve got turtles crossing four lanes of traffic or six lanes of traffic,” she said. “They don’t typically survive. They just can’t.”
What happens when a tortoise is relocated?
Florida law protects gopher tortoises and their burrows. An FWC permit is required before construction or other work disturbs a potentially occupied burrow, including covered activity within 25 feet.
Depending on the project and permit, tortoises may be relocated to protected space on the original property or transported to an approved recipient site.
Conservation permits are available for projects affecting more than 10 burrows and can allow tortoises to be moved to an on-site preserve or an FWC-permitted off-site recipient property.
Tramontana said relocation involves much more than picking up a tortoise and finding an open field.
The animal must be captured, checked for signs of illness and placed in habitat capable of supporting another tortoise. A recipient site that is already near its carrying capacity may not have enough food or space for additional animals.
“If your site is full of turtles already, each site is only going to be able to have so many turtles to support,” Tramontana said. “If you throw one turtle into a site that’s already at its carrying capacity, chances are all the turtles on the site could die.”
Tortoises may initially be kept within temporary enclosures to encourage them to settle into the new habitat rather than immediately leaving. FWC says recipient-site releases use “soft release” fencing and must be planned around weather conditions to reduce stress or death.
Tramontana said the reason is simple: A relocated animal may still try to return to familiar ground.
“It’s like a human,” she said. “If I take you from home and I dump you somewhere, you’re going to try and go home—whether you’re a bear, an alligator, a gopher tortoise or whatever. You’re going to go back to home.”
FWC says some recipient sites are monitored for 25 years
Researchers associated with the new international assessment have questioned whether relocation programs across the Southeast consistently include enough follow-up to measure survival and population growth.
In its response to News 6, FWC said monitoring requirements at certain categories of recipient sites are extensive.
“Population and vegetation surveys are required for monitoring purposes at Long-term Protected and Tier 1 Short-term Protected gopher tortoise recipient sites, and must be submitted in 5-year increments for 25 years following receipt of gopher tortoises,” the agency said.
FWC said habitat management must continue for the life of the recipient-site permit or conservation easement.
The agency also said relocated tortoises receive cursory health examinations, animals showing clinical signs of disease are taken to permitted wildlife rehabilitators and recipient sites must report injured, diseased or dead tortoises within 48 hours.
The agency’s permit system allows the public to search active and completed relocation permits and recipient sites by county.
However, FWC told News 6 that its reporting system could not readily show which recipient sites received each of the 6,818 tortoises moved off-site from Lake and Orange counties.
“We don’t have a reporting feature that also shows which recipient site each tortoise went to, as tortoises from a single donor site often go to multiple recipient sites,” the agency said. “That would require a review of every permit individually.”
The unresolved question is therefore not only how many tortoises were successfully moved, but whether monitoring shows those animals survived, reproduced and became part of stable populations.
FWC: Florida already provides its highest state protection
FWC said the new IUCN category does not directly change the laws or regulations governing gopher tortoises in Florida.
“The species’ current state listing status in Florida offers the highest level of state protection the FWC can provide,” the agency said.
The gopher tortoise remains classified as a state-designated threatened species in Florida.
FWC said the IUCN evaluates the risk across the animal’s entire range, which includes six Southeastern states. The international classification is one part of assessing whether a species warrants state listing, but moving to a higher IUCN category does not automatically reopen Florida’s listing process.
The agency pointed to its 2024 Gopher Tortoise Management Plan, which contains 63 conservation actions covering habitat management, population management, monitoring, research, permitting, enforcement and coordination with other organizations. The plan was approved in December 2024 and is intended to guide management for 10 years.
Its stated goal is to improve the species’ conservation status until it no longer warrants inclusion on Florida’s threatened-species list.
FWC regulates relocation—not development
FWC said it works with local governments to identify public and private lands that can support gopher tortoise conservation, including recipient sites.
The agency’s management plan calls for increasing protected habitat, restoring existing habitat and expanding protection to land adjoining existing conservation areas.
But FWC drew a distinction between its wildlife authority and local land-use decisions.
“The FWC does not regulate development, which is typically managed at the city or county level,” the agency said.
That means cities and counties can play a major role in deciding whether development plans preserve connected habitat on-site or rely largely on moving tortoises elsewhere.
For Tramontana, reducing outward sprawl should be part of the discussion.
“Florida tends to sprawl its development out,” she said. “We keep pushing out further and further. We need to go up. Go up—your infrastructure, your roads, your stuff is there—and leave the out as your green space.”
She said developing vacant or underused land within existing communities could reduce the need to extend roads, sewer lines and other infrastructure into previously undeveloped habitat.
One tortoise burrow can shelter hundreds of other species
The consequences extend beyond the tortoises themselves.
Gopher tortoises are considered a keystone species because their burrows provide shelter for hundreds of other animals.
“There’s over 300 other species that use their burrows,” Tramontana said. “Snakes, frogs, mice—all types of animals will go into a gopher tortoise burrow.”
Those animals may retreat into the burrow to escape extreme temperatures or wildfires.
FWC says more than 350 species share gopher tortoise burrows. Tortoises also help aerate soil and spread seeds while feeding.
“If you lose a keystone species, you can ripple down and lose a lot of other species at the same time,” Tramontana said.
Connected habitat may be critical to survival
Preserving individual tortoises does not necessarily preserve a viable population if the animals remain isolated from one another.
“You do need that connection, because fragmentation is going to cause a population to decline just because of the genetics,” Tramontana said.
She compared the genetic concern to problems previously documented in isolated Florida panther populations.
“We do need the connections,” she said. “A keystone species like the gopher tortoise—there’s so much else that depends on them that keeps the ecosystem intact.”
Nearly 7,000 local tortoises were moved during the five-year period examined by FWC.
The next question is whether Central Florida will preserve enough connected, properly managed land for future generations of tortoises to survive without having to move again.
What should you do if you see a gopher tortoise?
- Do not relocate it to another property. Moving, harming or disturbing a gopher tortoise, its eggs or its burrow without a permit is illegal.
- If it is crossing a road, help only when it is safe. FWC allows a person to move a tortoise across the road in the direction it was already traveling. Do not place it in a vehicle or take it somewhere else.
- Check construction sites for permits. Residents who see development activity within 25 feet of a burrow can use FWC’s permit map. Suspected violations can be reported to the FWC Wildlife Alert Hotline.
- Leave the burrow undisturbed. Routine yardwork is generally allowed as long as it does not collapse the burrow or harm the tortoise.