27th Annual Meeting and Symposium of the
Desert Tortoise Council, March 22-24, 2002
Abstracts

POSTER

Arizona Game and Fish Department's Sponsor-A-Tortoise Program

Darren K. Bolen, Roy C. Averill-Murray, and J. Daren Riedle
Arizona Game and Fish Department, Nongame Branch, 2221 W Greenway Road, Phoenix, AZ 85023

The need to find or create new funding sources is important for all biological research projects. Public outreach and education is also increasingly important to maintain support of ecological research and generate awareness of its results and implications. The Arizona Game and Fish Department's Desert Tortoise Project implemented the SPONSOR-A-TORTOISE program to provide supplemental income to purchase radio telemetry equipment, X-radiography film, and other miscellaneous field supplies for ongoing research of the Sonoran Desert Tortoise (Gopherus agassizii). This program provides the opportunity for interested individuals or organizations to support conservation and research efforts for desert tortoises through tax-deductible donations. Contributors learn about the desert tortoise project in particular, and hopefully a little about ecological research in general, through annual project reports. Contributors of $100 or more also receive a closer glimpse of their sponsored tortoise's annual activities through individual tortoise summaries. The Sponsor-a-Tortoise program has reached people across the country and is becoming increasingly important in maintaining operational funding for current research.