Desert Tortoises

Hello Friends,

I'm aware of several friends in my area in southern California who have one or more desert tortoises. From what they tell me they're fairly low maintainence pets, certainly not cuddly but interesting nonetheless. From an online search, "... you can have a desert tortoise as a pet, but only if it's captive-bred, as it's illegal to take them from the wild, and they require a significant, long-term commitment with specific outdoor housing, proper food, and specialized veterinary care. They need secure, escape-proof yards with burrows for shelter, access to healthy plants for food, shade, and water, and are best observed rather than frequently handled ... Desert tortoises are slow growing reptiles, reaching 8 to 15 inches in length at adulthood. They have wide legs tipped with specialized claws which are used for digging burrows. The carapace (top shell) is rather bulky and ranges in color from light to dark brown ... Desert tortoises have exceptionally long lifespans, generally living 50 to 80 years in the wild, with many surviving much longer, often reaching 80 to 100 years or more in captivity."

I shot the top image with a Panasonic Lumix GX7 with 3D lens and frame sides for phantogram processing. The width of the image was approximately 2-1/2 inches. This one is a baby, just a few weeks old, one of five. The bottom image was taken with my Fuji W3, with a rectangle in the shot for phantogram processing. The width of this images was approximately 12 inches. My friends have three adult tortoises, but I neglected to ask this one's age or if it was the mama.

If you think a tortoise is the pet for you, get back to me, the five babies are available.

I woke up this morning to the news that Israel and the USA have started a war with Iran, bombing and allegedly killing Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's leader since 1989. I'm not knowledgable enough to offer much in the way of opinions on the matter. For this I turned to a commentary by Rachel Maddow on why and who benefits (https://www.ms.now/ms-now/watch/who-benefits-maddow-nails-trump-on-motivations-to-attack-iran-2489860675640), and an illustration by Ann Telnaes, who calls it "Operation Epic Distraction" (https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/operation-epic-distraction?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ec83bda-bb0c-4e41-a415-59278818afa5_1990x2400.jpeg&open=false). No doubt you can find plenty of other opinions online.

Wishing for better,

Barry Rothstein

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