'When we were little,’ the Mock Turtle told Alice, ‘we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle – we used to call him Tortoise.’ ‘Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?’ asked Alice. ‘We called him Tortoise because he taught us,’ said the Mock Turtle angrily. ‘Really you are very dull!’

The Tortoise Village at Gonfaron is living proof that tortoises still have plenty to teach us: about themselves, their problems and how we can help avoid making them worse. Founded in 1988, the project was initially designed to help conserve the endangered Hermann’s tortoise, unique to France and the country’s oldest animal, believed to have been here for as long as 230 million years.

Since then, the site on two hectares of municipal land has expanded to take in other species, and now includes a study centre, with accommodation for visiting researchers and students, and a clinic that regularly treats some 300 injured tortoises a year. These are typically victims of cars, dogs, mowers, strimmers and rats, that can attack them in hibernation. Some, kept as pets, have had their shells broken in falls from balconies; the clinic has developed an effective method of repair using plastic resins. They reckon to be able to save 75 per cent of casualties brought in, like other unhurt specimens, by members of the public, police or customs officers who have seized them. Today the village is home to around 2500 tortoises, many of them the results of breeding programmes. Every year between 500 and 700 are released into the wild.

While conservation of Hermann’s tortoises (testudo hermanni hermanni is their scientific name) remains a major objective, the village has examples of species from as far afield as Africa, Russia, Spain, Greece and the Balkans. They range in size from new-born creatures little bigger than a thumbnail to North African giants weighing up to 100kg. Even these are small in comparison with some varieties, to be seen at Gonfaron only in model form, which may be as heavy as 950kg.

To make sense of this vast diversity, the village has been designed as a round tour, in which the different types are individually introduced with explanatory panels in French, English and German. (Guided tours are also available.) Visitors soon find it an absorbing task to spot the inhabitants of each enclosure, as many are well camouflaged. However, many tortoises are to be seen clustered close to the fences of their enclosures. This, it is pointed out, is because they are essentially wild animals who will always seek to escape from being confined. It is noticeable, too, that a lot of them show a lively interest in people and return with as rapt an attention the gaze of their visitors! While many tortoises stay as still as the stones on which they bask in the sun, others are decidedly mobile as they go about their affairs. Some even show a remarkable turn of speed – which makes the fabled race with the hare slightly more plausible, if still not altogether convincing.

Model inhabitants
To add variety to the tour, the village makes interesting use of models. Among them is a giant cutaway three-dimensional replica of the animals’ internal construction, showing the various organs and the powerful muscles that enable the tortoise to withdraw its head and legs into the shell.

This display, which has an explanatory recorded commentary in French, is sponsored by Nature et Découvertes, a chain of shops specialising in high quality nature-associated products and educational toys and games with wildlife themes, which established its own conservation foundation in 1994. (Local branches are to be found in the shopping precincts of Grand Var at La Valette, Le Pontet at Avignon, and La Bourse at Marseille. Visitors to Paris can find a large branch of the chain in the shopping area of the Louvre.)

Emphasising that tortoises pre-date even the dinosaurs, a further section of the village, A Journey in Time, takes the visitor through the periods of prehistory, with models representing some the huge and extraordinary species that are the ancestors of the living creatures already seen. Panels set these replicas in the context of the millennia in which they existed and explain the 30 million years of evolution that led to the development of the hard carapace that so distinguishes the tortoise from most other types of reptile. An even more recent addition to the tour is Little Africa, which groups together species from that continent and draws attention to tortoise villages now established in several countries there, which combine conservation wit the education of local populations.

Dwindling habitat
While it is thought that Hermann’s tortoises a million years ago were to be found throughout southern France, by the middle of the 20th century their territory has shrunk to include only the three southernmost departments of Provence – Bouches-du-Rhône, Var and Alpes-Maritimes. Within the past decade or so it had diminished to the strip between Toulon and Agay and now they are found only between Toulon and St-Raphaël. Even this remaining habitat continues to be lost to a combination of building, land clearance and forest fires, while the population is further threatened by trapping, despite – or because of - their protected status. Another strain of Hermanns exists in Corsica, where there is a similar conservation. Gonfaron has some examples of this variety but there are currently problems preventing their repatriation.

The breeding and release programme of the Gonfaron scientists go some way to halt the decline and their effectiveness is evidenced by the fact that wild births have recently been recorded on the Isle of Levant, where the species died out as far back as 1850. Also in the Hermanns’ favour is what is politely termed the ‘vigorous sexual appetite’ of the male tortoise. Given the chance, this can enable the females to produce clutches of three eggs every fortnight through the breeding season. The results of these activities can be seen hatching out in a special enclosure at Gonfaron, from early September onwards.

All mod cons
As far as possible, the village has been designed to be visitor-friendly and largely wears its scholarship lightly – even though frequent reference is made to the importance of public education to protect the tortoises. This point is made, with finger-wagging repetition, in a list of dos and don’ts: Do help protect the tortoise’s environment; Do help spread information; Don’t buy them as pets; and Don’t buy foods or products made from tortoises. Emphasis is also placed on the dangers of illegal trading, particularly affecting some of the species with unusually attractive shells, such as the star-patterned ones from Madagascar or leopard-spotted varieties from east Africa.

Other facilities include an audio-visual centre, a snack bar and picnic area, coin-operated soft drink machines, and toilets at intervals on the circuit. There is also a children’s play area and a section calculated to amuse younger children, in which the answers to FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions to the less computer-literate) can be found by turning wheels, lifting flaps etc. Inevitably on the way out there is the boutique, with a variety of books on tortoises and ranges of products illustrating them or made in their image. The fact that some of these replicas are relatively crude raises the question of whether that in itself could prompt people to prefer the real thing.

In conclusion
Whatever you preconceptions of the limited interest of such a specialised park – and I had my own – you are likely to be surprised by the sheer variety of what is to be seen. Faint interest develops into a form of fascination and it is possible to spend more time than you expect without becoming bored. As SOPTOM, the society that runs the village, rightly stresses, this is in many ways the opposite of a zoo: it is non-commercial and operates for the benefit of the animals rather than the visitors. The latter are welcomed in the hope that they will learn to regard tortoises differently and to respect them as wild animals rather than as creatures that may be domesticated. They are also, of course, welcome for the entrance tickets they pay for and the goods that they buy in the boutique, for such revenue is essential for the project’s continued work. Realising that makes the entry fees – €9 for adults, €6 for children of 5-16, but free for under-fives – seem a little less steep. For those who are sufficiently hooked as to want to return frequently, or who simply wish to support the cause a bit more, membership of SOPTOM, with unlimited visits and four quarterly magazines, costs €30 for one year or €50 for two, or you can ‘adopt’ a tortoise for €20. For this, you receive a photograph of ‘your’ tortoise, an account of its history and get to hear how it is getting along.

Getting there
Gonfaron lies in the angle between the A8 and A57 (or, if you prefer to avoid autoroutes, that between the N7 and N97). The nearest autoroute exit is Le-Cannet-des-Maures, exit 13 on the A57, just south of the A8/A57 junction. On the N97, Gonfaron lies between Carnoules to the west and Le Luc to the north-east. From the village, the Tortoise Village is well-signed. It lies on a minor road which can aptly be described as tortuous; it is frequently narrow enough to make one fear for one’s wing mirrors if anything is coming the other way. Tortoise-like speeds may be advisable.

The Tortoise Village is open every day from March to November, from 9am to 7pm, but the tortoises tend to be less active after the late afternoon. There is a large shaded free parking area.

Footnote
If, after your visit, you want to see more animals, the entrance to the Donkey reserve is almost opposite that of the Tortoise Village. Run by the local Donkey Protection Association, this houses some 40 donkeys that can be ridden in organised tours of the Massif des Maures, lasting for a day, a weekend or a week.

Le Village des Tortues
Gonfaron, Var
Tel: 04 94 78 26 41
Website

Photo Credits:
Science & Nature, SOPTOM and B. Devaux.