Updated Dec. 19, 2025, 3:53 p.m. ET
- Dog is first in United States trained to find gopher tortoises and burrows.
- Goal is to protect gopher tortoises from development.
- Gopher tortoise burrows provide food and habitat for about 365 species of bugs, reptiles, rodents and other mammals.
On a rainy morning in December, Echo excitedly dashed out of his crate in the back of an SUV to begin his training at a Fort Pierce park.
“Ready? Search,” said Gerry-Anna Jones, a trainer at Goldstar Puppy Academy in Fort Pierce and president of the Indian River County-based Gopher Tortoise Alliance. Echo, a 3-year-old male husky-shepherd mix repeatedly sniffed out a small fake gopher tortoise shell and was rewarded with a “good job” and small piece of cooked chicken.
Echo is learning to find gopher tortoises before their habitat is developed so they can be moved and protected. His unique skills also can be used for research and data collection, Jones told TCPalm.
Once fully trained, Echo will be the first dog in the United States that sniffs out gopher tortoises, according to Jones and Kristine Hoffmann, a wildlife biologist and conservation dog handler from upstate New York. She’s visiting the Treasure Coast and training Echo with her dog, Newt, a 7-year-old labrador retriever that sniffs out turtles.
Dog training to sniff out Florida gopher tortoise burrows
Jones and Hoffmann are working with Echo to switch from scent samples to live tortoises now that he knows his job. The goal is to have Echo ready for field work by spring 2026.
“He has been able to pick up the scent,” Jones said. “This morning (Dec. 18), he hit on a burrow.”
They’ll train Echo to zigzag through the landscape until he smells a live tortoise. After pinpointing a location, Echo will lie down next to a tortoise or its burrow. Handlers will work with a registered gopher tortoise agent or researcher to collect data and move the animal to a permitted recipient site if needed.
At the recipient site, the tortoise ideally will become habituated to its new home range over several months — a technique designed to prevent tortoises from homing back to their old burrow.
Jones believes the collaboration between the Goldstar Academy and Gopher Tortoise Alliance is a major step toward for conservation. “With Hoffmann’s expertise and Newt’s example, canine Echo could play a pivotal role in future habitat surveys, population assessments, and conservation initiatives, helping to ensure the survival of this unique and threatened keystone species.”
Florida development wiping out wildlife habitat
Florida’s building boom is having a disastrous effect on gopher tortoises, a 60-million-year-old keystone species whose burrow provides food and habitat for about 365 species of bugs, reptiles, rodents and other mammals.
Before 2007, developers could bury them alive, which suffocated or starved them. Since being deemed a threatened species, they must be relocated, but Florida is running out of room for them.
“If they are taken out of the environment, it causes a collapse in several different ways,” Jones said.
Relocations have increased 358% on the Treasure Coast from 178 in 2014 to 816 in 2021, compared to 66% in Florida from 6,730 in 2014 to 11,171 in 2021, according to Neal Halstead, research director and lead instructor in the authorized gopher tortoise relocation agent training program at the nonprofit Wildlands Conservation.
The U.S. gopher tortoise population has declined by 80% in the last century, according to Texas A&M University.
Tim O’Hara is TCPalm’s environment reporter. Contact him at tim.ohara@tcpalm.com.