By Sara Steffen | Conservation Coordinator
Thank you so much for your support of our Box Turtle Project! With your help we were able to raise $9,780!! This money has helped us purchase transmitters and new receivers in order to track 9 box turtles at Leigh Farm Park over the past 2 years. Your help has also allowed us to present at a box turtle conference, educate about the importance of conserving box turtles, and expand our citizen science project!
We have found multiple nest sites over the past 2 years and have been able to keep the nests protected with predator guards. Just last week we found a box turtle nesting with a field trip group. After telling the kids they needed to look for a camouflaged animal, one of the kids exclaimed “No Way! Is that turtle….laying eggs!?” Most of these children had no idea there were any turtles that lived on land, especially when there were no ponds nearby.
Our new focus is on our Neighborhood Turtle Watch – Turtle Trekkers. With this citizen science project we will be reaching out to local neighborhoods to pass out information regarding our project. We will also be educating students and teachers at local public schools, churches, camps, and events! We are excited to get individuals involved as Neighborhood Watch Leaders and will need to give the leaders supplies to take photos. The leaders will also be an important piece of project by recruiting new individuals to the Turtle Trekkers project.
We are still working with WildTrack on our photo ID app. This app will allow us to identify individual turtles without having to use tools to mark their shell. This is as minimally invasive as it gets, and fun! All you will have to do is take a photo and voila, you will see if your turtle has been found anywhere else! We are still in the development stage of the photo ID app. Once we have enough photos to test it out, we will be able to input citizens’ photos and determine if any of the turtles have been photographed more than once. These photos help us gather data so that we can determine how many turtles are living in North Carolina. This technology is new and could simplify the way we study wildlife populations.
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