Saving Slowpoke

Saving Slowpoke We are a grassroots initiative dedicated to protecting the Mojave Desert Tortoise and it's habitat here in the Mojave Desert.

Our goal is to accomplish this through community outreach and involvement, specifically in underrepresented communities.

CALL TO ACTION: WE NEED YOUR VOICE TODAY!The Soda Mountain Solar Project threatens our desert wildlife, communities, and...
08/29/2025

CALL TO ACTION: WE NEED YOUR VOICE TODAY!

The Soda Mountain Solar Project threatens our desert wildlife, communities, and the Mojave National Preserve. This project would destroy critical bighorn sheep habitat and set a dangerous precedent for more destructive development in one of the most fragile desert corridors. Though the project is largely going to affect bighorn sheep, keeping the desert landscape intact is also critical to surrounding desert tortoise populations, especially those within Mojave National Preserve.

📍 Meeting Details
🗓️ Today, 1-5PM (Public Comment around 4)
📍 Lenwood, California
🔗 to attend virtually is in our Bio!

We are urging everyone who cares about the desert, its wildlife, its water, and its rural communities like Baker, Newberry, and Barstow to either show up in person or call in to make your voice heard.

Our communities and wild places are too often dismissed as sacrifice zones for profit. Let’s remind decision makers that the desert is not disposable, and neither are the people who call it home.

Call in OR attend in person today at 1 PM in Glenwood. Your voice matters.

DM us if you’d like a quick drafted comment to read at the meeting.

Together, we can protect the Mojave and stop precedent-setting destruction before it begins.

At Saving Slowpoke, we believe that connecting young people, especially those from Native communities, to the wildlife o...
08/20/2025

At Saving Slowpoke, we believe that connecting young people, especially those from Native communities, to the wildlife of the desert is essential to keeping culture, knowledge, and conservation alive.

Recently we yet again partnered with our dear friends at the Native American Land Conservancy to provide hands-on experiences with desert tortoises, snakes, and other desert life. Seeing kids light up as they meet these animals and build positive connections with them reminds us why this work matters: building respect, understanding, and love for the desert that will carry into future generations.

We are so grateful to walk alongside the NALC in this effort, and we look forward to more opportunities to connect community, culture, and conservation.

In the Mojave, where the sun scorches the earth and water is a ghost, our favorite slow-moving survivor endures. The anc...
02/21/2025

In the Mojave, where the sun scorches the earth and water is a ghost, our favorite slow-moving survivor endures. The ancient and endlessly patient Desert Tortoise carves a life from the dust. It spends most of its days beneath the earth waiting, only emerging to eat and drink when the desert occasionally allows it.

The tortoise’s shell, worn by time, holds stories of survival… of outlasting drought, heat, and the unrelenting odds. It is a living miracle. In a world that rushes, it moves with purpose, proving that patience and resilience are the true measures of strength.

In uncertain times, we could learn from our friend the tortoise. Stand firm, move forward, and endure because survival isn’t just about the fight—it’s also about resilience.

HUGE win for tortoises!In case somehow you missed it in January 14th President Biden designated Chuckwalla National Monu...
01/24/2025

HUGE win for tortoises!

In case somehow you missed it in January 14th President Biden designated Chuckwalla National Monument, a 624,000 acre area just south of Joshua Tree National Park. Over 2/3rd of this new monument is designated as critical habitat for the Mojave Desert Tortoise and this area is also considered a vital conservation unit for the tortoise.

What does this mean?

This area was once a patchwork of different protected areas all with different levels of protection and management needs, it is now uniformly protected as a monument. That means ONE management plan will be drafted to best guide the bureau of land management on how they maintain this area for the foreseeable future.

We have spent so much time in this area and it truly is a paradise for desert tortoise and now it is a southern anchor for this amazing species!

Huge thank you to the coalition as well as well as all of YOU for accomplishing this massive success for our desert and the desert tortoise!

Yes, we’ve been off the socials for a stretch. Life happens! But like the tortoises we love so much when resources becom...
12/29/2024

Yes, we’ve been off the socials for a stretch. Life happens! But like the tortoises we love so much when resources become scarce we just take it easy and keep on hanging in there!

We also have some REALLY amazing news to share in the coming weeks. What we will say now is that resource availability is definitely changing in a positive way and we are looking at a new era of Saving Slowpoke! You will definitely be seeing more from us in 2025!

Until then, Happy New Year and as always, please hit our DM’s with any and all desert tortoise questions!

Happy World Turtle Day! To celebrate, please amplify and sign in to the petition in our bio! Chuckwalla National Monumen...
05/24/2024

Happy World Turtle Day!

To celebrate, please amplify and sign in to the petition in our bio!

Chuckwalla National Monument and the Expansion of Joshua Tree National Park would protect over 400,000 acres of critical habitat for the Mojave desert tortoise!

Let’s urge to sign this monument into existence using the Antiquities Act and give our tortoises a massive amount of protected habitat! If you haven’t heard, the Mojave Desert Tortoise was recently up-listed to Endangered under the California Endangered Species Act! So it is even MORE imperative that we protect as much habitat for them as possible!

Also follow to stay up to date on the monuments progress!

This is what it’s all about! Huge thanks to for having us out to your beautiful new preserve. So happy we got to connec...
05/07/2024

This is what it’s all about!

Huge thanks to for having us out to your beautiful new preserve.

So happy we got to connect with these budding young scientists and introduce them to some of the wildlife that depends on our desert tortoise for survival. It was also awesome to hang out with the wonderful folks from and hear about their efforts to protect their cultural landscape as a national monument. You know you have our support!

It’s always so cool when you see the smiles and appreciation for these animals happening in real time. Cass Pino (policy extraordinaire and event photographer) did an awesome job in capturing those moments. We always try to encourage young people hold on to their passions for dear life. Passion for our tortoise and the protection of our desert is what drives us and we just want y’all to know what that feels like so you can do good in whatever you decide to do.

This may be the most important tortoises we have come across. As you may know we are currently involved with an effort t...
02/14/2023

This may be the most important tortoises we have come across.

As you may know we are currently involved with an effort to stop a proposed development in Wonder Valley, California that would mess with a lot of things including the habitat and home of at least one confirmed desert tortoise.

Well today we had some beautiful weather and we decided to go take a walk around the outside of the proposed developments property and we found this gorgeous little hatchling near its impromptu burrow, not 50 yards from the property line. (We have a little bit of surveying experience ourselves. 😉) This is proof that Desert Tortoise reproduce in this area! All the more reason to protect it from increased traffic and development.

Sign the click-and-sign letter in our bio!



Looking for a way to help some desert tortoises? If so, I encourage you to check out this local effort to stop a develop...
02/14/2023

Looking for a way to help some desert tortoises?

If so, I encourage you to check out this local effort to stop a development in Wonder Valley, CA and send in a comment!

The developers are looking to plop a huge luxury resort in this quiet desert town and disrupt local wildlife corridors, pollute the night sky with light, draw on already extremely stretched resources, and worst of all, uproot this tortoise (pictured below) from its home located directly on the proposed construction zone. This tortoise was found on a professionally done study performed by two acclaimed tortoise biologists in April of 2020. The developer has chosen to ignore this study with the hope that nobody would notice. But it’s not just this one tortoise.

We (Saving Slowpoke) also took a stroll around the property’s boundary ourselves and found numerous tortoise signs bordering the property (s**t and a burrow). These signs indicate that tortoises still use the area and undoubtedly move through this proposed development site in search of already scarce food. The animals would surely be displaced by the project moving forward.

Please take some time to research and contribute to this good cause and help some wild desert torts! Every voice and comment matters in this sort of fight!

****MAJOR UPDATE:****
It was a beautiful warm day so we decided to walk around the boundary of the proposed property again and found this beautiful hatchling near its impromptu burrow, not 50 yards from the property line. This is proof that Desert Tortoise reproduce in this area! All the more reason to protect it from increased traffic and development.

Links in comments and happy to answer any questions! 🐢❤️

Getting stocked up and ready for the Spring! “Mazuri Tortoise LS Diet” can be a great addition to a captive Desert Tort’...
02/09/2023

Getting stocked up and ready for the Spring!

“Mazuri Tortoise LS Diet” can be a great addition to a captive Desert Tort’s varied food regimen.

Our Saving Slowpoke team uses this product heavily in the spring along with plenty of greens and grasses as it helps our tortoises gain some weight in preparation for the summer when we gradually cut back their green/wet food to almost none and only feed dry foods. This is in line with natural seasonal changes and food availability here in the Mojave and our tortoises rarely lose more than 20 grams over the summer.

Come autumn we use mazuri again to help them pack on a little more weight before they go down for the winter!

We also perform health and body composition checks on our torts right when they begin to come out so we can accurately monitor their weight and health throughout the year.

Any questions? Hit our DM’s!

wanna sponsor us? 😉

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Barstow, CA
92311

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