JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Every morning, Brett Desser climbs the stairs of her Jacksonville home to wake someone special.
“Scooter!” she says as she goes up to the second floor.
It’s not a dog pawing at the door, or a cat curled on a windowsill, or even a child wrapped in blankets.
Instead, she’s heading to greet Scooter – her endangered African spurred tortoise who, true to her “sassy” personality, prefers to sleep in until noon.
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The species, also called the sulcata tortoise, is the largest mainland tortoise in the world and is native to the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. It faces significant challenges in the wild, being classified as endangered due to habitat loss from agricultural expansion, desertification, and the market for their shells.
When Desser first received Scooter four years ago, the tortoise was barely the size of a quarter, arriving in a simple shoebox.
“I adopted her and I adopted everything that goes along with her,” Desser said. “I knew she had to stay at a certain temperature, needed fresh air every day, and fresh vegetables every day.”
Now at age 4, Scooter weighs around 10 pounds but could reach half her full size by the time she turns 7.
The commitment to her care is extensive – from daily soakings for hydration to carefully controlled climate conditions.
“When I get my grocery order, everybody knows Scooter because they know how many bags of fruits and vegetables I get,” Desser said.
For Desser, Scooter has become much more than a unique pet.
“She’s not only brought me peace and happiness and laughs, but she’s like the daughter I never had,” she said.
While Desser said that Scooter certainly has an attitude, she said the animal has helped Desser manage her anxiety and taught her patience.
“It is a life long commitment, but she brings so much joy to not only my life, to everyone that I come in contact with’s life,” Desser says. “Strangers, neighbors – when she gets bigger and she’s walking the beach with me, she can make other people happy.”
Desser has transformed her pet ownership into an urgent call for conservation education.
She regularly takes Scooter, often with festive hats and headbands, to local schools. A 2020 survey indicated as few as 400 of these tortoises may be around.
“There’s no reason why one of the closest animals to a dinosaur would have to go extinct because of the human race,” she said.
Desser’s conservation efforts have expanded beyond reptiles. A former personal trainer, she found a new calling in environmental conservation.
“I love helping people reach their goals...but I just knew that the Earth needed me more.”
She created a gardening and landscape business focused exclusively on pollinator-friendly plants, launching the Monarch Mafia initiative to protect endangered butterfly populations.
The monarch butterfly was listed as “endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in July 2022. In December 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing it as “threatened” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.
“If you plant it, they will come,” Desser said, encouraging Jacksonville residents to plant milkweed to support monarch butterflies.
“It’s extremely important to me. I want the people I love, my family and friends, and those that come after me to have all the wonderful things that I have in life, all the fresh fruits and vegetables,” she explains. “I don’t know how that’s going to pan out unless we all do something.”
The commitment to Scooter also extends far beyond Desser’s lifetime. Given the species’ lengthy lifespan, she has included provisions in her will for two generations of care for the tortoise.
“We have to focus on something other than ourselves for this to all work,” Desser said. “It would mean everything to me to make a difference before I leave this earth because this earth has given so much to us.”
More information about both Scooter and the Monarch Mafia conservation efforts can be found @ispeakbutterly on Instagram.