CONCLUSION
This study provides the first ever information and intriguing evidence
on the excellent homing ability of the Pancake tortoise through
mechanisms we now can only begin to understand. Further, the study
demonstrates the species as exhibiting high site fidelity and
territorialism. These ecological findings are important particularly
with regard to the development of conservation and management action
plan for this critically endangered species. More understanding on the
homing behavior is therefore needed for successful establishment of new
populations should there arise the need for reintroductions to depleted
areas in the future. The subject has implication also for facilities
that keep Pancake tortoises in captivity and whose breeding stock is
obtained from the wild. In such cases, it is evident that the tortoises
have high probabilities of suffering from captivity stresses related to
homing especially so if they were collected from the neighboring areas.
There is thus need to test the threshold distances over which homing by
the species is likely (or not) to happen and to understand the
mechanisms that make this behavior possible.