Ojai Sulcata Project Inc.

Keeping Animals Safe in a Friendly California Animal Shelter

Application Background

T&D's distributor, CAS DataLoggers, recently provided the data logging solution to Dave Friend, owner of the Ojai Sulcata Project Inc. in Ojai, California, which rescues and researches the massive Sulcata tortoise. These tough turtles are native to the southern Sahara desert and are one of the largest species of tortoise on Earth, but their conservation status is currently listed as Threatened: Vulnerable. With a lifespan of 60 to 100 years in ideal conditions, Sulcatas are native to Africa's Sahara Desert and often enter the U.S. through the black market. Their pebbly skin and pointy shells make them look especially tough, and Friend and his wife Maree are easily able to tell them apart by their different carapaces and sizes.

The OSP is a nonprofit shelter which takes in these animals when they've been given up by former owners who buy baby Sulcatas as pets but then abandon them in the wild or entrust them to shelters after the turtles grow much larger. "Sulcatas are not meant to be domesticated," Friend comments, explaining that though born small, these tortoises can grow to over 200 lbs in just a few years, which often proves to be too much of a challenge for homeowners to keep. Friend hopes that people will adopt Sulcatas from shelters like his for free instead of buying them at pet stores.

Dave and his wife have been sheltering these turtles for almost 30 years. Currently the Ojai shelter hosts about 80 turtles living in a 1-acre enclosure within the 12-acre property. The Friends receive donations which help to feed the animals and cover the large electric bills—they've installed heat lamps in both structures for their guests' comfort.

Most of the turtles live in the property's adjacent buildings and barns, so they have free reign to move about where they like. Sulcatas often dig burrows to sleep, which get dangerously cold and damp in the winter. As many as 5 turtles can share each burrow, which are about 8-12 ft in length and almost 4 ft underground. The shelter currently has 4 active burrows, spaced about 50 ft apart.

Dave needed to monitor conditions in the burrows to see how the turtles actually live: "Over time I'm getting a good snapshot of what they need to thrive." Friend says that keepers and enthusiasts have guidelines for their Sulcatas, but it's not yet known precisely what climate ranges they require. Regardless, cold and damp conditions are very unhealthy for them and need to be addressed ASAP--specifically, any temperatures below 50°F are cause for alarm. High heat usually isn't a problem but conditions over 95°F could also pose health risks. Friend estimates ideal temperatures to be in the mid 80s-90s with humidity around 60% RH. If the humidity in the burrows gets too low, the turtles start dehydrating, while if it becomes too humid, they can get a cold or potentially fatal respiratory disease. Constant care is especially important for these animals during the winter since they're cold-blooded and don’t hibernate. On nights where the temperature drops too low, Dave has to rush them out of their burrows and put them in the barn to warm up.

This environmental monitoring application was unique since the temperature and humidity data had to be captured from 4 ft. underground, making data collection difficult. The high condensation in the burrows further complicated the setup, so this was not a data logging application that many sensitive electronic devices could handle.

Before finding a wireless solution, Friend inserted a tape measure with an attached sensor down a burrow and would return when it had taken a reading 20 minutes later. "That just took too much time. I knew there had to be a better way." He needed a wireless monitoring and alarming system which could remotely gather the environmental data and send email alarm messages to his mobile device whenever conditions went outside safe ranges.