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The 2014 Gopher Tortoise Health and Waif Working Group meeting will be held on Thursday, October 16 from 2:00 - 5:30 p.m. at the Merry Acres Inn  (1500 Dawson Rd, Albany, GA, 31707). The meeting will be held in conjunction with the 36^th Annual Gopher Tortoise Council Meeting. There is no cost to participate in Health/Waif Working group meeting other than any travel/lodging costs you may incur. The meeting agenda can be accessed here. 

Meeting objectives are as follows and focus primarily on waif tortoises and include health topics: 

• To discuss/review current state policies and procedures for waif tortoises
• Identify gaps and/or differences in handling waif tortoises
• Consider suggestions for standardizing policies and procedures among states
• Discuss emerging gopher tortoise health issues
• Identify protocols for handling sick/waif tortoises
• Identify best avenue for range-wide coordination/collaboration
• Discuss development of online portal of resources

Other priorities that the group is working to address include:  

Database Creation

**** If you have surveillance data you would like to add to the database, please email it to jgonynor 'at' gmail.com. 

Establish a Morbidity/Mortality Database to which people report gopher tortoise observations.

• Establish a serology database to aid in range-wide disease mapping.
• Ante mortem health assessment and postmortem data bases.

*Purpose will be to track trends and map occurrence to keep biologists/ land managers aware (important with employee turn-over and loss of institutional memory)

Develop a response plan for tortoise mortality

Identify facilities/ researchers willing to perform necropsies and diagnostics.

• Contact and update list provided in Wendland et al. 2009.
• Who can/is willing do what at their lab?

Develop/ distribute consistent protocols for sample collection

• Collaborate with pathologists to send samples to
• Need a list of necropsy costs (e.g., http://labs.vetmed.ufl.edu/files/2012/03/STNecropsyReport.pdf and http://labs.vetmed.ufl.edu/sample-requirements/zoo-med-infections/sea-turtle-necropsy-biopsy/) 

Education about pathogens

• Partner with SEPARC Disease Task Team with their current efforts)

Help develop plans for tortoise relocation

• Protocol for addressing Mycoplasma positive tortoises and other disease issues during relocation. Also includes waif tortoises.

If you don't have a gmail account, and do not want one, please email Jess and she will give you a generic sign-in (this option available to members only). 

photo: J. McGuire 2012 please do not use without permission 

Website maintained by Jessica McGuire jgonynor@gmail.com