By Grace Bowman | Conservation Assistant
Well, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping...and yet, we're in the midst of a pandemic. It's certainly not what we expected springtime to be like at PWC, but box turtles are nonetheless coming out of brumation all across the park, and resuming life as usual. With so many aspects of our daily life on pause, we take comfort in the predictability of the natural world.
During all of this, we've been keeping a close eye on our telemetry turtles; so far, a handful of them are out and about, while others are taking their time coming out of their winter abodes. We'll keep you posted on their whereabouts over the next few weeks!
We had lots of events lined up to promote our citizen science project,Triangle Turtle Trekkers, this spring that have unfortunately been tossed out of the window because of COVID-19. Still, we remain optimistic in our mission to collect data on box turtles and educate the public on their status. It may not look quite the way we planned, but what's a trek without some hills to climb?
A silver lining to the situation: PWC has a new website! We've worked very hard to make this website as user-friendly as possible, and we hope you enjoy visiting it. With it, we've also introduced a new app we're using for Triangle Turtle Trekkers: EpiCollect. We love this app because it keeps all of the data and photos in one place, and records your turtle's location with the touch of a button. Now is the perfect time to get out and take a turtle trek! (Be sure to respect others and abide by social distancing rules, and only explore in permitted areas). You can learn more about our Triangle Turtle Trekkers project by visiting our new webpage, or watch this video tutorial on turtle trekking!
Like most organizations, we have had to cancel all of our programming for several weeks, during one of our busiest times of the year. Your support is directly enabling us to continue our work in conservation research and education. We've already seen an outpouring of support from our community, and we are full of gratitude for those that recognize the value in our mission.
Take care, and trek on!
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