Home is where the shell is: Backyard sanctuary gives turtles, tortoises a safe place to thrive

JAMES CITY — Here’s something you might not know about tortoises: They have nerve endings in their shells, which means they can feel it when you pet them. If you don’t believe it, watch Redfoot wiggle around when Breeanna Ebert scratches her.

In her day job as a software engineer, Ebert develops virtual reality simulations, but her true passion lies in caring for tortoises and turtles.

Ebert, who grew up in upstate New York, received her first tortoise at 6 years old as a birthday gift from her mom. She named the tortoise after its species name, and Redfoot — now 22 — has been with her ever since.

At first, Ebert just had the one tortoise, but when she attended Carnegie Mellon University, she found herself even more interested in tortoise species. She went to reptile shows and became involved with preservation and conservation programs.

Eventually, she added five more tortoises to her reptilian family before moving to Texas. By the time she settled in James City County five years ago, she had 12. Today, not counting hatchlings, she has 47 tortoises and turtles across 12 different species.

Over the years, her interest in critically endangered species grew. For instance, Ebert participates in a group that works with critically endangered African hinge-back tortoises. Five of the 12 species she cares for are critically endangered.

Ebert, who has a captive-bred wildlife permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, buys tortoise hatchlings or yearlings and cares for them for life. They start out indoors in her office room before being moved to the backyard. When noncritically endangered species breed and produce hatchlings, Ebert sells them as pets.

Including her current hatchlings, she has over 60 tortoises, including Redfoot, whom she jokingly refers to as a “diva.”

“She knows that she can get whatever she wants,” Ebert said, including first dibs on meals and a male tortoise who frequently dotes on her.

In her office just off her main living area, Ebert houses her baby tortoises and other species that can’t live outside. Although the space is small, she has a wall of stacked enclosures that simulate a forest environment. In addition, the floor and shelves have large open top bins to hold more.

The babies live in this room for two years. Among the different species being housed indoors, Ebert has several different Northern redfoot tortoises from Peru, Venezuela and Brazil. Each is identifiable by distinctive body features or patterns on their shells. Ebert and other breeders can cross the different localities to create hybridized tortoises with unique marbled shell patterns.

Ebert also houses her critically endangered hinge-back tortoises and pancake tortoises indoors because they’re fragile, and she doesn’t have outdoor cages set up yet.

The hinge-backs are all wild-caught from Kenya, so they stay inside to acclimate before being put in a more natural habitat outside. Named after the hinge on their shell, they can snap part of their shell closed as a protective measure when they feel threatened.

The baby pancake tortoises fit easily in the palm of the hand, but grow larger and live up to 60 years. As their name suggests, they are flat like pancakes and have malleable shells. They can wedge themselves into small spaces, explained Ebert, then inhale to jam themselves and avoid being pulled out by predators. They only lay one egg at a time, which contributes to their status as critically endangered.

On Ebert’s screened-in back porch, she cuts fresh greens for the tortoises every morning. They enjoy a diet of dandelions, mustard greens, turnip greens, kale and lettuce.

In her backyard, she has three African sulcata tortoises, Lily, Tito and Chamille, who roam on the lawn and live in a shed that Ebert built herself.

The sulcatas have trackers on their shells because they figured out how to get through the fence. They dig massive burrows in the ground to stay cool in the summer — one female has been working each year on a 20-foot burrow that reaches 10 feet straight down.

At 6 years old, Tito weighs 70 pounds — eventually he’ll weigh more than double that.

They eat cactus fruits, which are low-sugar and high in fiber, as well as apples and banana peels. Ebert gratefully accepts food donations from her neighbors who sometimes bring over food scraps.

Ebert houses the other adult tortoises in homemade wooden enclosures organized by species. When she receives a new tortoise, she quarantines it for a year to make sure it is parasite- and disease-free.

Here’s another thing about tortoises: They don’t hibernate in the winter. In fact, they can’t handle anything below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, Ebert said.

She designed and built wooden shelters for each species’ enclosure. The shelters are fitted with heat lamps and temperature and humidity thermometers.

Ebert hopes to use her software engineering skills to eventually create a program that will monitor activity within each tortoise enclosure.

While she mainly focuses on endangered tortoises, Ebert also has a colony of box turtles, which she considers some of the smartest reptiles that she owns. When she sees box turtles trying to cross the road, she will stop her car and help them. If she finds a female that has been hit, she takes it home and incubates the eggs. After they hatch, she releases them back into the wild.

Ebert finds giving them a second chance at life to be incredibly rewarding, just as she feels about caring for the tortoises and increasing the numbers of those that are endangered.

“I like seeing their growth,” Ebert said when asked what she likes best. “I love their shells. They’re just really beautiful, and I like their personalities.”

Seeing them content and enjoying their life, she added, makes it all worth it.

Want to know more?

Ebert allows visitors on Fridays and weekends by appointment. To contact her, or for information about tortoise/turtle adoption, visit her Facebook page at www.facebook.com/ebert.tortoises or call 315-576-8254.

Evelyn Davidson, evelyn.davidson@virginiamedia.com