Artwork by Dan Burgevin
Desert Tortoise Lokta Card
$5.00 – $8.00
- Our images are set in a frame on this beautiful, handmade paper from the Nepalese Lokta shrub.
- This tree-free paper is both environmentally friendly and sustainably harvested.
- Each card comes with an envelope and is packaged individually in 100% biodegradable cellophane sleeve.
- Cards are blank on the inside for your message.
- Back of card has educational story, shown below in description.
Back of Card DESCRIPTION
Desert tortoises range from the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of southeastern California and southern Nevada south through Arizona and Mexico. They inhabit semi-arid grasslands, gravelly desert washes, canyon bottoms and rocky hillsides. Desert tortoises are strictly terrestrial. They have domed shells and stumpy elephantine hind legs, their front limbs are flattened for digging. These tortoises may attain a length of 9-15 inches in carapace length and weigh up to 15 pounds. They may live up to 100 years.
Desert tortoises are herbivores eating grasses, herbs and wildflowers. They spend most of their lives in burrows which they dig with well-muscled front legs. Burrows provide a cool place for the tortoises during the dry, hot days of late spring and summer as well as a warm place for winter hibernation. Burrows also serve another purpose…protection from predators. Ravens, Gila monsters, kit foxes, badgers, roadrunners and coyotes are all natural predators of the desert tortoise, generally preying on juveniles which are 2-3 inches long with a thin, delicate shell.
Desert tortoises are a threatened species. Much of their habitat has been lost or degraded by mining, livestock grazing, agriculture, development and off-road vehicle use. Just as the turtle cannot separate itself from its shell, neither can we separate ourselves from what to do to the earth.
artwork by Dan Burgevin © 2003
text by Steve Sierigk
