For a long time, the Gopher tortoise population dominated the southeastern United States, stretching from the state of Georgia to Louisiana and continuing into Florida. The gopher tortoise resided primarily in longleaf pine forests, serving as a keystone species of this ecosystem, providing shelter to over three hundred species in these forests that experience frequent fires. However, over time, the Southeast has lost more than eighty percent of its longleaf pine forests due to deforestation and the decline of natural wildfires, also leading to a very rapid decline in gopher tortoise population. Another recent discovery of a respiratory disease in gopher tortoises has also led to a population decline. This article will discuss various trends, such as movement and burrowing patterns, hatchling survival, and genetic variation in the gopher tortoise, as well as how each of these has been affected by the recent decline of the overall population level of gopher tortoises. The gopher tortoise has been established as a frequent mover from one region to another. Many do so in order to increase their growth, reproduction and survival in order to obtain better food, better nesting sites and find new mates (Eubanks et al. 2003). In a recent study by Eubanks, Michiener, and Guyer, using a total number of one hundred and thirty-one turtles, the group tracked movement frequency, average distance traveled, and number of burrows, as well as the average home range occupied by the gopher tortoise in the longleaf pine forest of Baker County, Georgia. The average distance traveled and number of burrows were much higher in males. Females also occupied a much smaller home range than males (Eubanks et al. 2003). In the middle of the article ......d in the 10, they found that the number of inactive burrows relative to the number of active burrows either remained the same or decreased over the study period. Similarly, the number of abandoned burrows relative to the total number of active and inactive burrows increased at 6 of 10 sites. Of the six cases, the increase was greater than 10 percent and four of them were greater than 50 percent (McCoy et al. 2006). They concluded by stating that due to the number of abandoned burrows relative to the total number of active and inactive burrows, this suggests that the gopher tortoise population has declined at 8 of the 10 sites, and this is not attributed to patterns movement of the gopher tortoise. . Based on the previous two discussion articles, it is clear that the burrow models also offer a reliable conclusion that the gopher tortoise population is in steady decline..