Help Save the Box Turtles!

We were sitting in the office one day in May when Cassie, one of the park’s staff members, came into the office with a turtle in hand. As soon as I saw the turtle, I noticed the transmitter. At first, I assumed she had just found one of our turtles on the property and thought we’d want to know about it. That assumption quickly left my head as the words “So, they were mowing the garden” came out of her mouth. I knew what had happened, and I knew that this was turtle “ABP”, dubbed Peggy when we first marked her in 2009. She was missing a rear foot, but that didn’t slow her down. Peggy loved hanging out among the blackberry bushes and safe shelter of the overgrown garden. Cassie continued the story of what happened, and it turned out she survived the mower, but was hit with a weed whacker. Fortunately, lawnmowers can be set to a minimum of 4 inches, which means you can prevent turtle injuries and deaths! Weed whackers on the other hand can do a lot of damage very quickly, if you don’t see the turtle. Peggy had lacerations to the top of the head, but it actually didn’t look that bad. I was hopeful…at first.

Once she was in our office, we let her rest in a box in a dark and quiet location. I checked on her occasionally and noticed that she was out of her shell and her head was resting on the bottom of the box. She was looking quite lethargic and I knew this wasn’t good. I made the decision to call our local turtle rehabilitators, the Turtle Rescue Team at North Carolina State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. They let me know I could drop her off at anytime. As I was driving her from Durham to Raleigh, I noticed that Peggy started spinning to the left. Only in that direction. At this point, I knew the lacerations weren’t superficial and that her brain was likely affected by the injury.

Once at Turtle Rescue Team, they were hopeful (just like I was) that the injury wasn’t as severe as it looked, but with any animal that comes in, they were cautiously optimistic. As I was waiting for Peggy’s intake, 3 other turtles were being admitted with crush injuries from cars. I had an instant reminder of why it’s so important to conserve these creatures and why this project is so important. With diminishing habitat, there are less and less places for these turtles to live. They have to cross roads to lay eggs, to find new homes, or to find food resources. As long as there continues to be development, there will be turtle casualties.

After Peggy stayed at Turtle Rescue Team for 2 days, I received a phone call. Unfortunately, Peggy’s injuries were too severe and she didn’t survive the night. She was on pain medication and kept as comfortable as possible while in their care. This was a hard loss for everyone who has spent time monitoring Peggy, and for our research project. It’s hard for us not to get attached to these turtles after “knowing” them for 9 years.

We estimated her age to be around 20 years, but really there’s no sure way to determine age in box turtles. Both in 2009 and in 2016, we estimated her to be 20, and we obviously know she can’t be the same age 8 years apart! In those approximately 20 years, she likely laid hundreds of eggs, and hopefully quite a few made it to adulthood. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll unknowingly follow one of her offspring!

We want to make sure Peggy’s legacy lives on. With help from folks just like you, we can continue to research these turtles so that one day we can understand more about their home range sizes, movements, and habits. Your support will help make sure that Peggy’s legacy lives on through our research, our Turtle Trekker project, through publications, and through conservation awareness education. Because of your support, one day, everyone will know to look for turtles in their yard, before they start mowing. One day, people will stop on the side of the road and help the turtle cross, instead of hitting it. It all has to start somewhere, so why not here?

Links:

• Become a Turtle Trekker!
• I found a Turtle - what do I do?

Imagine yourself walking on a trail through the woods on a nice cool summer morning. You see birds flitting from tree to tree, squirrels chasing each other up a pine tree, and maybe you even catch a glimpse of a white-tailed deer running away from you. But then, suddenly, you look down, and find a small creature not moving. The shell of this creature is a multitude of browns and yellows. You stop to check it out, not sure what this is, when a little head pops out from the shell. With no signs of aggression from the shell, you carefully inspect it and identify it as a turtle. What kind of turtle? You have no idea! You think to yourself, “But there’s not a pond nearby, what’s it doing way out here on the trail?!”

After you ponder the turtle’s existence for a few minutes, you recall a citizen science project you’ve heard about. Turtle Trekkers! You look up Turtle Trekkers on your phone and are reminded that this is a box turtle – our only land turtle! “Of course, that’s why it’s not near the water,” you think to yourself. From the website, you recall that you need a ruler and a camera in order to take photos of the turtle. Unfortunately you didn’t carry a ruler with you this morning, but you do have your keys on you. No worries, you just lay your keys next to the turtle and snap a few photos of the top of the turtle’s shell. Then, since the turtle was so cooperative, you flip it over and take a photo of the bottom of the shell. When you are finished, you return the turtle exactly where it was.

You are reminded in this moment how precious our wildlife are and how important their ecosystems are. How often do you find a creature in the woods that you can interact with? You wonder how anyone couldn’t care that these animals may disappear from our earth in the not-so-distant future. You begin to think about all the people that would never have an interaction with a turtle. You think about all the other creatures in the woods and how they would be affected if there were no turtles. That’s when you say to yourself “how can I help?”

Well, it’s simple. You’ve already taken the photographs. All you need to do now is upload those photos with your GPS, address, or general location and submit them to the Turtle Trekkers project through e-mail. These photographs of turtles will be used in a program developed by WildTrack (a non-profit that works with SAS in Durham, NC). WildTrack’s program will allow us to be as minimally invasive as possible to these turtles while still determining the number of turtles within North Carolina. We will be able to identify the individual turtle you found based on measurements and ratios of their scutes (the scales that protect their boney shell). What if the turtle you found was found by someone else in the park? Maybe next time you find a turtle in your yard, you’ll want to know if your neighbor ever saw it. We’ll be able to tell you that! These photographs will assist us in determining how well box turtles are doing in urban areas – neighborhoods, schools, business parks, etc. We need to know if box turtles are surviving the development of an area and once developed, if they can survive in these developed areas given enough resources (food, water, shelter). If they cannot survive in these areas, we are in trouble. As more and more development occurs there is increasingly less space for wildlife. Not just turtles, but all the animals that are part of the environment and food chain. Take out just one piece of that food chain, and we can only imagine what effects it may have on the rest of the ecosystem.

So, will you help us? We need to increase the photos in our database to make our program as robust as possible. This is the perfect time to join the project. Turtles will awaken from brumation (reptile hibernation) any day now! Sign up through our google form and you’ll receive newsletters like this one, information about the project, reminders about searching for turtles, and more!

Links:

• Become a Turtle Trekker!
• WildTrack - Footprint Identification Technology (FIT)