Deborah and I were thrilled the other day when we volunteered to serve as wildlife researchers at the Boyd Hill Nature Preserve.
We joined up with other novice researchers…formed a line to comb one part of the preserve looking for gopher tortoise burrows…to see if they were home.
It is important research because gopher tortoises are threatened in Florida and if we want them to survive we need to ensure they have a habitat where they can live…and thrive.
Why gopher tortoises you may ask…what do they do for you….or me?
Because they are important to the circle of life…to the balance of nature…to our planet’s harmony.
They are known as keystone species…meaning whatever happens in their ecosystem…to the climate or the weather…Gopher tortoises are indispensable…they hold the group together.
Gopher tortoises build large burrows…and once they’ve been bulldozed…
they welcome in other species…their door is never closed.
Meaning as many as 350 species can share their home…in fact in the home these tortoises make…you may find moths and beetles, crickets and flies…frogs and mice and snakes.
Meaning each gopher tortoise builds in their area…agrarian
A commune…a commune for nature…only this one’s subterranean.
Without the gopher tortoise…life in this section of the land would cease to be…
throwing off it’s balance…throwing off it’s harmony
I wondered if we could learn from the gopher tortoise…as we attempted to count every one..trudging through the underbrush… under the heat of the Florida sun….
I wondered what our world would be like if we opened our homes and our hearts to all species large and small…
what kind of world would we live in…
If we made keystone species of us all?
Something to think about as we watch the threatened country of Ukraine struggling to survive…trying to ensure they have a habitat where their families can not only live…but thrive.
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