Longboat gopher tortoises recognized with proclamation

Oh no — you missed Gopher Tortoise Day. You better get them a really good present. The holiday for the keystone species came and went on April 10. 

Terri Driver, who lives at Banyan Bay Club in the middle of Longboat Key, was the one who got them a card. The “card” for the holiday came in the form of a proclamation from the town recognizing the long residence of Delilah, the Banyan Bay Club gopher tortoise, and the family she’s created. Driver emailed the town about a proclamation for Gopher Tortoise Day, which was signed by Mayor Ken Schneier and town clerk Trish Shinkle. The proclamation recognized the longevity of the gopher tortoise’s life on Longboat Key and the importance of the animal within the ecosystem. 

“We’ve lived here for 15 years, and the large female has been here the entire time we’ve been here,” Driver said. “I started talking to people who’ve been here for 30 years, and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, she’s been here.’” 

Gopher tortoises can live to be between 40 and 60 years old in the wild, so Delilah is getting to be middle-aged. Females don’t move around much, so the Banyan Bay community is pretty sure it’s the same tortoise. But she recently grew her family. During the pandemic, Delilah got a visitor. 

“I have no idea if she ever mated before,” Driver said. “I was like, ‘Oh here comes a smaller one,’ thinking it was a female and after a couple days I realized that’s a male. He was here two years ago and came back this year.”

Her visitor was named Sampson. The Driver family are huge Grateful Dead fans and named both tortoises after a song from the album Terrapin station. The hatchling that came around was named Blind Willy, after the man who originally wrote the song “Samson and Delilah.” 

“I’m sure she’s had other names during her time here,” Driver said. “We love the song, so we said, ‘Let’s name her Delilah and the male comes through, so we’ll call him Sampson and then the baby was born, of course we’ll call him Blind Willy.’ Of course he’s blind, he lives in a parking lot. He’s going in the wrong direction.”

Driver has seen another gopher tortoise further north on the Key and knows that there are many on Sister Keys. They’re a keystone species and their burrows provide homes for about 350 other species. 

“During the pandemic Sampson came around and then a few months later we were getting out of the car and (my husband) Jeff was like, Look at this turtle,’ and I was like, ‘This is too early for sea turtles,’ and we saw this tiny yellow turtle with dots on it and googled it to find out that it was a baby gopher tortoise,” Driver said. 

Often, gopher tortoises are removed from the premises because they’re a threatened species. Builders can’t do anything on land with a threatened species, so they pay to have them removed. It can cost around $1,500, but Driver and the folks at Banyan Bay Club are perfectly happy with their neighbor. She’s quiet and only pokes her head out every so often. The sea grapes grow rampant at Banyan Bay Club and Delilah loves to eat them. Blind Willy also makes a home in the foliage and luckily when the sea grape cutters come around every six months or so, they’ve managed to give the tortoise family a wide berth. 

“We can give her a place to live and it’s amazing she’s survived in this area and continued to reproduce,” Driver said. “The holes they make are minimal, it’s not damaging the land. Maybe people have a misconception that it’s damaging my land or eating my crops. They pretty much nibble on grass and a few berries and then they give homes to 350 other species. They’re an important species, just like the sea turtles, and it’s awesome that we can have one here.”