Massachusetts turtles are in trouble. Help by volunteering to survey turtles at the Ward Reservation and Harold Parker State Forest Saturday, April 18 or Saturday, April 25, 9 a.m. to noon, at the Ward Reservation.
Program will teach volunteers everything they need to know from turtle biology basics to survey techniques, and will feature a field walk to test those new skills. Live turtles will be on hand for observation.
Turtles face threats from loss of habitat, predators such as skunks and raccoons, illegal collecting and the dangers of crossing the road. Volunteers can help by becoming a citizen scientist and documenting turtles. Their work will help protect these fascinating creatures.
This is a free training with the hope that attendees will become independent volunteer monitors at Ward Reservation and Harold Parker State Forest. It is perfect for families with children looking to explore the outdoors.
All About Turtles of Cape Cod, a talk by Bob Prescott, director of the Massachusetts Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. He will discuss turtles of the land, sea and marsh that are found here on Cape Cod.
Thurs., April 30 – 6:30 p.m. - All About Turtles of Cape Cod - Bob Prescott, Director of Mass Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary
TAMPA - After years of treatment and rehabilitation, Florida Aquarium marine biologists have released two sea turtles back into the wild.
The turtles and their caretakers left for the east coast of Florida around 8 a.m.
One is a Kemp's Ridley sea turtle, and is the most endangered kind; the other is a loggerhead sea turtle, which is classified as "threatened" in Florida.
Biologists say they are both rare, and their successful rehabilitation comes after years of treatment for their injuries.
The Loggerhead, named "Lucy" by her caretakers, was brought to the Aquarium in 2006 after a boat hit her, damaging her spine, and rendering her paraplegic.
"Lucy" no longer has use of her back flippers. Biologists say turtles in this condition usually have to stay in captivity, but "Lucy" is able to maneuver herself well, and was approved for release by Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The Kemp's Ridley sea turtle came to the Aquarium in 2002 after becoming stranded in Massachusetts. It had extensive shell rot, which was eventually cleared up with antibiotics.
Both turtles were returned to the wild near Cape Canaveral.
JUNO BEACH - Eleanor Fletcher, the iconic "Turtle Lady of Juno Beach," who founded the town's marine life museum on her back porch and taught thousands about the ocean through beach tours and nighttime turtle-watching expeditions over three decades, died Tuesday. She was 92.
Ms. Fletcher moved to Juno Beach from Massachusetts in the late 1960s, planning to retire. But she became a local celebrity and one of the area's most celebrated amateur naturalists after taking an interest in turtle tracks she found along the shore near her condo.
WAREHAM - They are hidden everywhere, from the waters of Buzzards Bay to the backyard, a fact many homeowners have found out a little too late while mowing their lawns or backing out of their driveway.
There are almost a dozen species of turtle along the South Coast that visit the waters or make their homes in the areas that are still a little bit wild. From the red-bellied cooter to the loggerhead, the long-living turtles can be found almost everywhere if you know just how to look for them, and few people know where to look better than local turtle experts Don Lewis and Sue Wieber Nourse.
“We’re going to start out with the local guys we run over with our cars...” Lewis interrupted himself. “...That we find in our backyards.”
On Valentine’s Day, the couple came to the Wareham Free Library to talk about turtles.
The first step was to turn everyone in the room into an expert on the reptiles with one word: temperature.
According to Lewis, temperature was the answer to most questions about how turtles function in the world around them.
Whether they’re terrapins, tortoises or sea turtles, as cold-blooded animals, turtles orient much of their lives around keeping their body temperatures in the right range. They spend their mornings basking in the sun on rock sand logs, and they go into a deep hibernation in the winter when the cold slows their bodies down. Temperature can even determine what sex a turtle will turn out to be after it hatches, since unlike humans, turtles don’t have an X or Y chromosome.
For Lewis and Nourse, teaching about turtles is important because many species are threatened or endangered and serve as a signal that their habitats and the rest of the animals that dwell in them might be in trouble. It also doesn’t hurt that children love turtles, teenage mutant ninja or not, and that connection can be used to teach them about the natural world as a whole.
In Massachusetts, the Eastern box turtle is threatened by the destruction of its habitat due to residential expansion. The turtle typically likes to live at the edge of the woods near grassy fields where it’s easy to find slugs and snails, but their habit of wandering into the grass also leaves them vulnerable to one of their main predators: lawn mowers.
Lewis shared a photo of a box turtle with a shell chipped and marred by mower blades when an inattentive homeowner or grounds keeper has accidentally struck one of these slow moving creatures. Although the turtle’s shell can regenerate, it is neither a safe nor pleasant experience for anyone involved.
The red-bellied cooter is listed as endangered by the Massachusetts Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, its range having been confined to a few pools and ponds within Plymouth County. The turtle is easy to distinguish because the bottom shell is either red (for females) or a pale pink (on males).
The cooter spends its life almost exclusively in the water, coming out to lay its eggs in sandy soil or to migrate if the going gets too tough in their pond. The spread of residential areas and the destruction of Pine Barrens has destroyed much of their local habitat, making it much more difficult for the turtles to migrate.
Herbicides and other chemicals used to treat ponds, pools and bogs also slow down the maturation of the cooter and its reproductive cycle. This means fewer and fewer turtles are laying fewer and fewer eggs. There are certain areas in Plymouth where the turtle has been found that are protected, and while the turtle has been spotted in Wareham, their nesting sites haven’t been located.
“We really nee to know where this turtle is in Wareham,” Lewis said.
Lewis also brought along a few diamondback terrapin hatchlings no bigger than a half-dollar. The terrapin is found from the edge of the Cape to New Bedford, but while it is threatened in Massachusetts for many of the same reasons other turtles are, such as the destruction of its habitat by suburban sprawl, there is another reason in particular: Terrapins were very popular in turtle soup through the middle part of the 1900s.
On his way down to his inauguration, John F. Kennedy was said to have stopped at the home of one socialite for a cup of the soup.
“Can you guess why they’re threatened?” Lewis said.
While harvesting the terrapin is now illegal in the commonwealth, the turtle has seen many of the salt-water marshes and estuaries they call home disappear over the years.
Lewis and others are helping the public to see the wildlife around them in the hopes of coexisting a little better, even if it’s just slowing down when turtles are laying their eggs so they don’t run over a few hatchlings during the commute.
Lewis offered one very important reason why turtles were a great animal to study.
“When you get to be a certain age, you like to find a species that you have a chance of catching,” he said.
To find out more about Lewis and Wieber’s investigations into the turtles of the South Coast, visit their Web site at www.turtlejournal.com.
February 25 - Sea Turtles - Did you know that four species of sea turtles are found around Cape Cod and southeastern Massachusetts in the summer? Come and learn about these endangered species, from the young Kemp's ridleys, the size of a dinner plate, to the giant leatherbacks which can be eight feet long and weigh more than 1,000 pounds.
Karen Dourdeville conducts a sea turtle program with Massachusetts Audubon's Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.
The cost for the program is $6 for nonmembers, $4 for members. Please send registration form (available at the museum) with payment to the Marion Natural History Museum, P.O. Box 644, Marion, MA 02738 to reserve a spot. All programs will meet at the Marion Natural History Museum, 8 Spring Street in Marion. Please register with the museum directly, not the school or library. http://www.marionmuseum.org/
WAREHAM – Don Lewis, AKA the “Turtle Guy,” will present “Turtles Gone Wild: turtles of the South Coast and Cape Cod” at the Wareham Free Library beginning at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 14.
Lewis and his “partner in research and life,” Sue Wieber Nourse, will introduce the diamondback terrapin and Kemp’s ridley sea turtle among other rare and endangered shelled critters of local lands and waters. Among their efforts, the couple rescues stranded sea turtles, warms up cold-stunned turtle babies, relocates terrapin eggs for protection from predators.
The Wareham Land Trust and Wareham Free Library are co-sponsoring the presentation. Refreshments will be served. For more information, call Mack Phinney at 508-295-4225.
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