We were treated to our third desert tortoise sighting of the season. This
is the smallest one so far and he (I think this one is a male) drew quite
the crowd once other Sabino Canyon visitors came over to check out
what we were doing. I took my pictures and gave it a freshly picked prickly
pear fruit, which it started eating right away. Very cool to see these in the wild.



Below, my youngest getting a closer view. It is against the law to touch or pick
these tortoises up, and that's a good thing because they are very tolerant
of close encounters like this and obviously can't outrun a predator. Dan's comment
got me doing more research and one can, in fact, move a tortoise out of harm's way.
The reason why you are not allowed to pick them up otherwise is because they store
water in their bladder. One of their defense mechanisms is to empty their bladder
when threatened. This can lead to dehydration and kill the tortoise.