when doing controlled burns. “You
want to burn with the direction of
wind, humidity, and temperature in
mind. We prep before a burn to have
as much control as possible,” said
Marylou. “We remove any dead snags
that are inside the unit that we feel
could catch fire and throw embers
over a boundary. We also make sure
there's mineral soil all the way around,
so the fire doesn’t go into another
unit.”
Working with a prescribed fire
is very different from dealing with a
wildfire, she explained. People from all
over the country come to Georgia to
gain prescribed fire experience. “Out
West,” said Marylou, “they are usually
fighting wildfires. They don’t get a
lot of experience in the preventative
aspect. Here, we are more focused
on getting fire on the ground, so we
don’t have those wildfire incidents
like they have out there. A couple of
people on my fire crew this year left
to fight wildfires in Oregon, Colorado,
and California. In January, they plan
to come back here to do prescribed
burning.”
In early 2020, Marylou was
selected as Gopher Tortoise Biologist
for the Georgia Department of
Natural Resources. This new position
allows her to pursue one of her
greatest passions: gopher tortoises
and protecting and managing their
habitats. Native to the southeastern
United States, the gopher tortoise is
Georgia’s state reptile. Unlike turtles
that can live in water, tortoises are
land animals. “Habitat loss is the main
thing we deal with,” said Marylou.
“Gopher tortoises really depend on
sandy areas dominated by longleaf
pines.”
According to the USDA Natural
Resources Conservation Service
website, “Historically, more than
90 million acres of what
is now the southeastern
United States were covered
by longleaf pine (Pinus
palustris) savanna; today,
only 3.4 million acres remain
and most are fragmented
and in poor condition….
longleaf pine forests
are some of the world's
most biologically diverse
ecosystems, and provide
critical habitat for 29
threatened and endangered
species, including the gopher
tortoise” (nrcs.usda.gov).
“The main thing
we can do for them right
now, outside of purchasing
property for them, is to
continue to manage the
property they live on. This
is done with prescribed
burns, which gives them a
healthy environment. The
gopher tortoise is considered
a ‘Keystone’ species,” said
Marylou, “which is why
it’s so important and gets
so much attention. It may
seem as if I’m focused on
one species, but in the grand
scheme of things, there are
many species that benefit from the
conservation of that one species. In
fact, there have been up to 350 species
documented to use their burrows.
When you protect the gopher tortoise,
you in turn protect many other
species like birds, snakes, amphibians,
and tons of invertebrates.
“The gopher frog is one of the
species that actually lives in tortoise
burrows,” she continued. “The pine
snake and the Indigo snake are
rare species that also use that same
habitat. They utilize the burrow to get
away from predators and as a refuge
from all kinds of things including
fires. By managing gopher tortoise
habitats, you also benefit game
species like the white tail deer and the
bobwhite quail.”
In recent years, the state has
acquired a lot of land for this very
purpose, including the 16,000 acre
Ceylon Wildlife Management Area in
Camden County and the more than
3,000-acre Alligator Creek Wildlife
Management Area north of Lumber
City. At present, there are some 132
wildlife management areas in Georgia.
“We've got a long way to go before we
can get some of these new wildlife
management areas in a place where
it's suitable for gopher tortoises and
any of the species associated with the
gopher tortoise,” said Marylou.
Calls come from developers,
landowners, and farmers. “Because
the gopher tortoise is a protected
species and threatened in Georgia,
people call as a protective measure.
They don’t want to do the wrong
thing.” During recent work to
widen US Highway 1, the Georgia
Department of Transportation
contacted Marylou about six gopher
tortoises in one of the areas they were
clearing. “Excavating a tortoise is an
ordeal,” she said. “They can dig up to
twenty-feet deep, and their burrow
can be over forty-feet in length.
You have to have an excavator and
equipment operator to slowly pull
back the sand from the burrow until
you find it.”
Gopher tortoises have exceptional
directional ability. “You can’t just
pick them up and move them or
Gopher tortoises dig tunnels down in the ground.
ABOVE, Marylou points out a typical gopher
tortoise burrow.
62 TOOMBS COUNTY MAGAZINE
/(nrcs.usda.gov