By Sara Steffen | Conservation Coordinator
So far in 2014 we have discovered 14 turtles in Leigh Farm Park. Seven of which were new turtles that had not been previously found. For comparison, in 2013 we found 41 turtles, only 14 which were previously marked. The turtles must have been much more camouflage this year. We still had summer camp kids running around the woods looking for turtles, so yet again – an unanswered question. Why did we find fewer turtles this year compared to the previous 3 years? We’re not sure yet, but it’s a good baseline to help us understand population levels. More questions means we need to do more research!
The turtles that were previously found outside of their “normal” home ranges have moved back. Two of our turtles were found close to a busy highway that borders our park (see the map), but luckily they turned around before getting too close to the highway. CHO’s data points are closest to the highway (very southern edge of the map) and ALM moved further south as well.
We have added one new turtle to our study, BMW. BMW is in a slightly different area than our other transmitter turtles, so it should be interesting to see where he goes. On the map, do you see the blank area in the park between the northern edge of AOW and ABP and the southern edge of ALM? That’s where BMW was found. BMW is not on the map yet, as we only have a couple of data points for him.
We also just recently lost a transmitter from one of our turtles. Our turtle, BIL lost his transmitter last week. Fortunately we have a year’s worth of data. This just goes to show that research doesn’t always go as planned. The transmitter should still have about 12 months of battery power left, so we hope to find a new turtle before they start hibernating for the winter. Last year the turtles started hibernating mid-November. We’ll keep tracking throughout the winter to see when they start and end hibernation.
For now, we’ll keep looking out for turtles. If you live in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina, make sure to help us with our citizen science project. See the link below.
If you want to support this project – the best time to give is Oct 15, 2014 at 9am on the dot! Your donation will have a match at exactly 9am, but funds don’t last long! Help us save the box turtles!
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
