Western Swamp Tortoise

Photo credit: Friends of the Western Swamp Tortoise

On the weekend I went on a food-lovers’ tour of the Swan Valley as part of a fund-raising thing for the Friends of the Western Swamp Tortoise. It was a great day out – a small busload of us were taken to the best road-side stalls and food places in the valley to sample some great market garden produce and treats. We finished up with lunch at the Edgecombe Brothers winery, yummy food even though we were all wilting in the heat by the end of it.

The Western Swamp Tortoise is one of the most endangered tortoises in the world, and is listed as Critically Endangered with only 300 left in the world. Just 100 of these live in the wild, in a couple of pockets along the Swan River. They used to be plentiful, but when the Swan Valley was settled, people cleared their habitat for farming, and introduced predators like foxes and cats.

Which is a shame, because they’re a fascinating little animal. They’re carnivorous, eating little crustaceans and insects, but only when the water temperature is between 14 and 28 degrees! Obviously it gets much hotter than that in summer in Perth, as we found out for ourselves on the tour. To avoid the worst of it, the tortoises bury themselves underground until the weather gets nicer again. Seems like a good tactic, I can’t blame them after the heat-wave we’ve had here in the west!

People actually thought the Western Swamp Tortoise was extinct for over a century, but in the 1950s a little group of them was found. Nowadays, there are breeding programs and some have been reintroduced to protected areas. You can see some at the Perth Zoo, or get in touch with the Friends of the WST for more information about these interesting creatures.