Kate Leach January 31, 2025
Welcome back, conservation enthusiasts! I’m Dr. Kate Leach, Senior Veterinarian at Zoo Atlanta, and I’m thrilled to share the story of my recent fieldwork in Madagascar supporting tortoise health and conservation. If you’ve been following our journey with Zoo Atlanta’s conservation stories, you’ll recall our recent exploration of the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and their vital work to save Madagascar’s critically endangered radiated tortoises.
This recent trip marked my second visit to Madagascar, following an unforgettable journey in 2018 to assist with the care of over 10,000 radiated tortoises confiscated from illegal trade. The 2018 worldwide mobilization to support the TSA’s heroic efforts to rehabilitate these animals was an inspiring testament to global collaboration for wildlife conservation.
TSA has since been working on a rehabilitation to reintroduction plan for the thousands of tortoises in their care. Releasing animals into the wild requires a significant amount of planning and preparation to ensure that the forests are protected and that the habitat can support the tortoises being released. And my work as a veterinarian is to help make sure that the tortoises that are released are healthy so they can thrive in the wild and that they don’t pose a disease risk to the existing wild population.
The goal of this trip was to perform pre-release health assessments on over 1,000 radiated tortoises slated for release into the wild this year, perform health assessments of tortoises more recently rescued from illegal trade, to support any other ongoing health and related conservation needs at the centers in Madagascar, and to support training of the next generation of wildlife veterinarians in Madagascar.
I joined an international group of two other expatriate veterinarians and two technicians. In country, we joined the TSA vet team, led by the head Malagasy vet, and a group of veterinary students dedicating their training to conservation medicine.
I want to share our travel story, and I hope that you can close your eyes and envision our experiences and what it is like on the ground to save these special animals. I also want to share about the team’s hard work and our accomplishments, as well as highlight the ongoing work of dedicated individuals who continue the work in Madagascar, long beyond the time that we leave, to save the radiated tortoise.
It takes about three days to get to our field sites in Madagascar. The trip is not easy, but it is so worthwhile!
After an international flight from Atlanta to Paris and then an 11-hour flight to Antananarivo (aka Tana, Madagascar’s capital), I arrived late at night and made it by car to our accommodation, Chez Jeanne. I got some shuteye before getting up to meet with the group and catch our next flight out of Tana.
We flew to Fort Dauphin, a city along the southern coast of Madagascar. We stopped for lunch, packed the trucks, then started our seven+ hour drive to the Tortoise Conservation Center (TCC). The drive to the TCC is an exciting, breathtaking, but bouncy and unpredictable 4WD trip through southern Madagascar landscape, ranging from coastal views, to mountainous national park, to farmlands and flax plantations, to dry scrub forest. The road itself ranged from brief sections of paved road to mostly unmarked sand.
After departing Fort Dauphin, we no longer had running water or standard bathrooms and showers. Once at the TCC, we settled in for a week, living in tents, using bucket showers, and relying on well water for drinking. The TCC is approximately 30 acres and houses three critically endangered tortoise species, the radiated tortoise, the spider tortoise, and the ploughshare tortoise, and has an amazing team of people who work hard to care for these tortoises and are dedicated to protecting them.
Over five intensive field days, we completed health assessments on over 1,000 tortoises. Most of our work was out in the large, enclosed tortoise habitats within the center. We would set up stations with chairs, upside down metal tubs, or the ground as seats, a table, and carry out our equipment. As our trip was during the dry season, it was sunny and often reached 95F+, so for both us and the tortoises, we would try to find shade in the scrubby vegetation.
We completed health assessments for: 14 ploughshare tortoises (Astrochelys yniphora), a species even more imperiled than the radiated tortoise, and 84 spider tortoises (Pyxis arachnoides), along with pre-release health assessments on 1,120 radiated tortoises (Astrochelys radiata) that are to be released in the near future.
These assessments included getting body weights, shell measurements, taking swabs for infectious disease testing, a physical exam, performing bloodwork on a subset of animals, running fecal samples for parasites, and all radiated tortoises for release were individually identified with a microchip, just like your dog or cat may have for a permanent ID.
We worked together closely as a group, worked hard during these hot, long days, and ate three meals a day as a group at a big, shaded, open-air table; rice and beans were often on the menu. It was wonderful getting to know everyone and learning from one another.
We held training exercises both hands-on with the tortoises in the field and in the laboratory. The training covered lab techniques, tortoise examination, diagnostic sample collections, sample handling, and data recording and management. We also had great didactic discussions and problem-solving exercises to explore real–life tortoise conservation topics with the students.
On our last day in this area, we traveled about 2.5 hours by 4WD truck to Cap Sainte Marie, Special Reserve of Madagascar National Parks, to assess the site for the future tortoise reintroductions to this protected area. Cap St. Marie is a stunning park right along the southern tip of Madagascar, with dramatic cliffs, caves, and some great radiated tortoise habitat. It was incredibly hot and windy that day, and while we didn’t see any tortoises, we saw evidence of their presence (tracks and feces).
We then started the drive back toward Ft. Dauphin with a two day stop at Berenty Reserve, which had an ecotourism lodge, beautiful protected forest, and research site for lemurs and other wildlife. It was nice to have a hot shower and sleep in a bed! But, there was still more work to be done! We performed health assessments on a more recently confiscated group of juvenile radiated tortoises held at this Reserve.
We then started our journey back to Tana. We had a few hiccups during our drive. We got stalled on a narrow bridge and had to get out and push the truck to get it re-started. This was not our first truck stall, so we got good at push-starting the truck and made it back to Ft. Dauphin. After a few hours of sleep in a hotel, we had to get up in the middle of the night to catch a flight to Tana that was unexpectedly delayed. Travel in Madagascar is not always fast or easy, but if you are patient and flexible, it is full of adventure, amazing people, rewarding experiences, and important work.
Once we arrived back for our final days in Tana, we brought lab samples to the TSA Headquarters, checked in on some tortoises at headquarters, had some wrap up meetings, rested, and then said goodbye to our Malagasy teammates before our long trip back to the USA.
While this trip represents great successes, challenges continue. We just received word last week of atypical rainfall causing devastating flooding at the other large conservation center in Madagascar. It is heartbreaking hearing of the losses of many tortoises and the damage to the local village and homes of the people who support this center (read more here on the TSA website). BUT, the heroic efforts of these people who pulled together to rescue thousands of tortoises and take care of one another is inspiring, and gives me continued hope!
I’m profoundly grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the TSA’s mission and Zoo Atlanta’s commitment to saving the radiated tortoise. Together, we can ensure a brighter future for these remarkable animals.
Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to explore the incredible work of our conservation work around the globe and in our own backyard.
