Taylor stopped by this cache this afternoon. It is in front of the North Campus of Florida Atlantic University (FAU) in Jupiter, FL. FAU's mascot is the burrowing owl, since their original main campus located in Boca Raton, FL is on a burrowing owl habitat area. The burrowing owl is a so-called "species of special concern" in Florida (and many other states). See this site for some information on them: www.ecofloridamag.com/archived/burrowing_owls.htm .
I don't believe there are any burrowing owls up here at the North Campus, but it is located on some land that is home to the gopher totrtoise (see this site for more info: www.nbbd.com/godo/ef/gtortoise/ ). Gopher tortoises are listed as "threatened" by the federal government, and are also a "species of special concern" in Florida. They live in deep burrows in the ground, which are often homes to many other animals as well. On the way in to this cache site I passed several gopher tortoise burrows, one of which was still very fresh. On the way back out I passed another burrow, then a tortoise on the path! He curled up into his shell as I passed. I didn't have my camera with me today so I missed getting his picture.
The gopher tortoises in this area are lucky; the FAU North Campus is part of a large development called Abacoa that has numerous areas set aside for preservation as gopher tortoise habitat. The result is we have lots of small tracts of undisturbed woodlands throughout the various housing communities of Abacoa. They are very pretty places to walk, they give the tortoises a place to live safe from human development, and finally they have become a place where the local geocaching community has placed many caches.
I am going to hang onto Taylor for just one more week; we are taking our daughter up to Disney World and Sea World next weekend, and I will release Taylor in a cache up there at that time. I will try to get her in some fun pictures too...in the daytime this time.