Preserving Mass wildlife: linking landscapes - Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Posted by Tim Dexter, MassDOT Environmental Analyst

Transportation infrastructure affects wildlife through direct mortality due to vehicle collisions, fragmenting and isolating habitats, and by altering natural habitats. In addition, roadway usage by wildlife causes accidents, which can result in property damage and personal injury. To address these issues, the MassDOT Highway Division has teamed up with MassWildlife, UMass Amherst, and the Vernal Pool Association to create ‘Linking Landscapes’, a long-term and multifaceted effort to minimize the impact of the existing road network on wildlife, while improving highway safety.

The Linking Landscapes research framework is simple: team up with citizen scientists to gather information on wildlife roadway mortality hotspots, to inform long term planning decisions in the context of transportation infrastructure upgrades. A critical component to the research is a user friendly online mapping interface where the general public, state highway personnel and law enforcement can document site specific wildlife mortality observations.

I was pleased to lead a discussion about turtle mortality with representatives from communities in the watersheds of the Sudbury, Assabet, Concord and Shawsheen Rivers, above. My thanks to Sylvia Willard of the Carlisle Conservation Commission for the photo.

How can you get involved? Three statewide citizen science research efforts are underway:

The Wildlife Roadway Mortality Database: Document your observations of wildlife deceased due to wildlife vehicle collisions.

The Vernal Pool Salamander Migration Study: During early spring rain events, mole salamanders migrate from their upland hibernating habitat to vernal pools to reproduce. Often, hibernating habitat and vernal pools are separated by roadways, which causes roadway mortality. Be on the look out for large ‘over the road’ salamander migrations in early spring, and record the locations within the Amphibian Roadway Crossing Database.

The Turtle Roadway Mortality Study: Turtles have existed for millions of years, but roadways are threatening the survival of local populations. Turtles in Massachusetts often cross roadways late spring to early fall. Keep your eyes peeled as you drive by wetland areas, and record your observations of turtle roadway mortality. The information gathered will be used to coordinate local turtle conservation efforts.

Get involved and find more information on the web.

Source: Article Ant

Be on the watch for turtles this month

By Don Lyman/DAILY NEWS CORRESPONDENT
GHS
Posted Jun 01, 2010 @ 10:00 AM


Over the next month or so, from the end of May until the end of June, female turtles will leave their watery hangouts and trek overland in search of a spot to lay their eggs.

Massachusetts has 10 species of native turtles -- painted, snapping, musk, red-bellied, bog, spotted, Blanding's, wood, box and diamondback terrapins (and one exotic species, the red-eared slider). Except for the box turtle, which is a terrestrial or land turtle, and the diamondback terrapin, which lives in salt marshes, all of our turtles live in fresh water environments.

From diminutive 4-inch-long musk turtles to 60-pound snapping turtles, if you live or work near a pond, stream, swamp or other wetland, you're likely to see one of these reptiles crossing a road or parking lot, or digging a nest hole in an open field or vacant lot, or even in your yard.

Turtle nests consist of a hole in the ground, which female turtles dig with their hind feet. They tend to choose patches of bare soil, which is easy to dig in, in open areas like fields or yards where the nests will get plenty of sunlight to incubate the eggs. For example, a conservation officer for a town north of Boston told me recently that Blanding's turtles, which are a threatened species in Massachusetts, like to nest in the sandy soil on the town's soccer field. During nesting season the part of the soccer field where the turtles dig their nests has to be cordoned off until the baby turtles hatch in late August and early September.

Smaller turtles, like bog or musk turtles, may only lay four or five eggs. Bigger turtles, like Blanding's or snapping turtles, may lay a dozen or more. After she's finished laying her eggs, the female turtle fills in the nest hole and covers the eggs by pushing the loose soil she's excavated back into the hole with her hind feet. The eggs usually hatch anywhere from two to three months after being laid.

Interestingly, the sex of the hatchlings is determined by temperature, with warmer soil temperatures typically producing female offspring and cooler soil temp's producing male offspring, although this can vary depending on the species.

Threats to turtle eggs include mammals like raccoons, skunks, opossums and rats, which will dig up the nests and eat the eggs, according to Kerry Muldoon, Conservation Commission biologist for the city of New Bedford. Muldoon adds that even plants can pose a threat to turtle eggs. She says the roots of beach grass and saltmarsh cordgrass can penetrate and destroy the eggs of diamondback terrapins, which she studied while in graduate school. Hatchling turtles likewise fall prey to a variety of animals including mammals, birds and even ants.

Many adult turtles are hit by cars as they cross roads in search of nest sites or when they attempt to nest in open areas along the edges of roads. Turtles also sometimes nest in the open, sandy and gravelly soil next to railroad tracks where they may be hit by trains or become trapped between the rails. Biologist Tim Beaulieu says he found about a dozen or more turtle nests along a 100-foot section of railroad track behind a small pond while conducting a biology survey for reptiles and amphibians in a suburban area west of Boston a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, Beaulieu said, all the nests had been destroyed by predators. Additionally, Beaulieu said he found the remains of several adult painted and snapping turtles trapped between the rails.

Turtle eggs and hatchlings have a high mortality rate and only a small percentage of turtles ever reach adulthood. Because of this low survival rate, says the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife website on turtles, "...a turtle must live for many years and reproduce many times in order to replace themselves in their population. Losing any adult turtles, and particularly adult females, is a serious problem that can tragically lead to the eventual local extinction of a population."

The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife's Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program is working with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on a new program called the Turtle Roadkill Monitoring Project to locate turtle roadkill hotspots. Its goal is to identify and monitor problem road crossing sites for turtles. The program is asking for public's help to identify potential turtle roadkill hotspots in your town, working to confirm the spots with project coordinators, then help conduct road surveys at these sites during designated time periods in May and June.

In addition to roadkill hotspots, Mass. Fisheries and Wildlife and the Turtle Conservation Project are asking the public to submit information on locations where multiple turtles nest, as well as to report sightings of individual turtles.

If you should find a female turtle nesting in your yard, Mass. Fisheries and Wildlife says the best thing to do is to keep people and animals away from the area until she's done nesting, which can take several hours. Also, remember that turtles can deliver a painful bite and, in the case of large snapping turtles, can inflict serious wounds. Half a dozen of Massachusetts' native turtle species are state listed as endangered, threatened, or species of special concern. Other than snapping, painted and musk turtles, it is illegal to capture and keep wild turtles as pets in Massachusetts. It's also important never to release store-bought turtles into the wild, as they may transmit diseases to wild turtle populations.

Turtles have been around since before the time of the dinosaurs and they play an important role in the environment as predators, herbivores and prey.

"Aquatic turtles often represent a very high proportion of animal biomass in wetlands they occupy, therefore making them very important in wetland food webs," says Dr. Hal Avery, a biology professor and turtle researcher at Drexel University in Philadelphia. "Turtles occupy many trophic levels (an organism's feeding position in a food web)," says Avery, "from primary consumers (herbivores) to top carnivores,"

Turtles also play an important role in limiting herbivore populations, according to Avery, which helps maintain the stability of entire ecosystems and ecological communities. "For example," says Avery, "without diamondback terrapins, Spartina (the dominant salt marsh plant) salt marshes would be overgrazed and lost to mollusc grazers."

Avery, his colleague professor Jim Spotila and other researchers from Drexel University, in conjunction with volunteers coordinated through the nonprofit organization Earthwatch, have been conducting a long-term research project at New Jersey's Barnegat Bay for several years now, studying the ecology of diamondback terrapins and the effects of humans on these turtles. The researchers are discovering that commercial fishing, shoreline development, pollution, the hazards of roads and motor vehicles, and even boat noise all take their toll on turtles.

"Because they occupy some of the most biologically diverse and productive ecosystems in the world," says Avery, "and because they utilize aquatic and terrestrial habitats within these ecosystems, aquatic turtles are paramount indicators of ecosystem function, making them important model organisms to study in conservation biology."

Unfortunately many species of turtles are threatened due to habitat destruction, pollution, roads and other hazards. But research being carried out by scientists, as well as programs like those being conducted by Mass. Fisheries and Wildlife, and citizen involvement in turtle conservation efforts, can help ensure that turtles will continue to be around to play their important roles in the environment, and for future generations to observe and enjoy as part of our natural heritage.


Don Lyman is an adjunct instructor in the Biology Department at Merrimack College in North Andover.


Find out more:

Massachusetts Turtle Roadkill Monitoring Project: http://linkinglandscapes.info/roads/volunteer_to_monitor.html

Turtle Conservation Project: www.turtleatlas.org

Earthwatch Barnegat Bay Diamondback Terrapin Project: www.earthwatch.org/exped/avery.html




Copyright 2010 The Daily News Tribune. Some rights reserved
Source: http://www.dailynewstribune.com/lifestyle/columnists/x644095579/Be-on-the-watch-for-turtles-this-month

Caution: Turtles Crossing

The weather has been so good that a mother snapping turtle came out and laid dozens of eggs in the parking lot of the McDonald’s on West Housatonic Street in Pittsfield. (Randy Stracuzzi / Special to The Eagle)

Caution: Turtles crossing
Mating season is slow and steady, snarling local traffic
By Scott Stafford, Berkshire Eagle Staff

Tuesday June 1, 2010


Listen up, Berkshire County drivers: Slow down and keep your eyes on the road -- it's turtle time again.

Mating season for local turtles is upon us, so the females are headed for their ancestral nesting grounds to lay eggs, as they do around this time every year.

Unfortunately, that means many of them will be crossing Berkshire roadways.

They tend to not look both ways. They don't cross at the lights. And they take their sweet time.

By now, many of them have met a fateful end under the tires of vehicles. But many have been lucky enough to cross in front of caring drivers who actually stop and direct traffic around them, or help them to the other side of the road safely.

"I just wish people would take more care, slow down and watch out for the turtles," said Pamela Berkeley, a Sheffield resident. "Some of these turtles could be 100 years old or more."

Thom Smith, a retired Berkshire Museum natural science curator and Berkshire Eagle columnist, said that he has received about a dozen e-mails in the last week from people expressing concern about turtles crossing the road.

"June is the peak time for this," Smith said. "They're looking to find sandy soil to lay their eggs."

The road-crossing turtles around here are mostly snapping turtles or painted turtles.

The snapping turtles are more dangerous and can grow to about the size of a car tire. But either species will snap at any perceived threat.

Smith said the local population of the two species are not in decline despite their asphalt adventures.

The best course of action when someone sees a turtle strolling through traffic is to stop the car, put on the emergency blinkers, and pick up the turtle by the back of its shell and take it to the side of the road it was headed toward, Smith said.

He cautioned against picking up a turtle by the tail as it tends to make the turtle a bit cranky and it leaves the carrier vulnerable to the dreaded turtle bite.

For the heavier turtles, a stick can be used to push the turtle along by the shell. Caution is advised either way.

"They can get aggressive when they are out of the water seeking a place to lay eggs," Smith said.

Last week, workers and customers at McDonald's on West Housatonic Street shared a turtle adventure.

A big snapping turtle made an early morning cruise across the drive-through lane. Employees came out of the store and directed traffic around the slow-moving female while she made her way around the restaurant and under the shrubbery next to the parking lot.

Employees and onlookers blocked off the parking spaces adjacent to the turtle to give her a safety zone while she dug into the dirt and laid her eggs. Two hours later she was gone.

"A lot of cars come driving through here, so we wanted to protect her," said McDonald's employee Michelle McKeon. "I would never want a poor defenseless turtle to die for no reason. It's just not fair."


For more information: sstafford@berkshireeagle.com or (413) 496-6241.




Source: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/local/ci_15200457

My View: Slow-moving turtles increasingly at risk in our fast-paced world

My View
by Don Lyman

—

Between now and the end of June, female turtles will be leaving their watery hangouts and trekking overland in search of a spot to lay their eggs.

Massachusetts has 10 species of native turtles — painted, snapping, musk, red-bellied, bog, spotted, Blanding's, wood, box, and diamondback terrapins (along with one exotic species, the red-eared slider). Except for the box turtle, which is a terrestrial or land turtle, and the diamondback terrapin, which lives in salt marshes, all of our turtles live in freshwater environments.

From diminutive, 4-inch-long musk turtles to 60-pound snapping turtles, if you live or work near a pond, stream, swamp or other wetland, you're likely to see one of these reptiles crossing a road or parking lot, or digging a nest hole in an open field or vacant lot, or even in your yard.

Nesting habits

Turtle nests consist of a hole in the ground, which female turtles dig with their hind feet. They tend to choose patches of bare soil that is easy to dig in, located in open areas like fields or yards, where the nests will get plenty of sunlight to incubate the eggs.

The conservation officer for a town north of Boston told me recently that Blanding's turtles, which are a threatened species in Massachusetts, like to nest in the sandy soil in the town's soccer field.

During nesting season the part of the soccer field where the turtles dig their nests has to be cordoned off until the baby turtles hatch in late August and early September.

Smaller turtles, like bog or musk turtles, may lay only four or five eggs. Bigger turtles, like Blanding's or snapping turtles, may lay a dozen or more.

After she's finished laying her eggs, the female turtle fills in the nest hole and covers the eggs by pushing the loose soil she's excavated back into the hole with her hind feet. The eggs usually hatch anywhere from two to three months after being laid.

Interestingly, the sex of the hatchlings is determined by temperature, with warmer soil temperatures typically producing female offspring, and cooler soil temperatures producing male offspring, although this can vary depending on the species.

Threats to turtle eggs include mammals like raccoons, skunks, opossums, and rats, which will dig up the nests and eat the eggs, according to Kerry Muldoon, Conservation Commission biologist for the city of New Bedford.

Muldoon says even plants can pose a threat to turtle eggs. She says the roots of beach grass and salt-marsh cordgrass have been known to penetrate and destroy the eggs of diamondback terrapins, which she studied while in graduate school.

Hatchling turtles likewise fall prey to a variety of animals including mammals, birds, and even ants.

Caution: Turtles crossing

Many adult turtles are struck by cars as they cross roads in search of nest sites, or when they attempt to nest in open areas along the edges of roads. Turtles also sometimes nest in the open, sandy soil next to railroad tracks where they may be struck by trains, or become trapped between rails.

Biologist Tim Beaulieu says he found about a dozen or more turtles' nests along a 100-foot section of railroad track behind a small pond while conducting a survey of reptiles and amphibians in a suburban area west of Boston a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, Beaulieu said, all the nests had been destroyed by predators. Additionally, Beaulieu said he found the remains of several painted and snapping turtles trapped between the rails.

"Adult turtles live a long time," according to the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife website. "For example, Box Turtles are known to live longer than 100 years. However, because turtle eggs and juvenile turtles have so many predators and must face many other survival difficulties, only a tiny percentage of turtles ever reach adulthood. Therefore, the survival of adult turtles which have been fortunate enough to surmount these obstacles is very important.

"For this reason a turtle must live for many years and reproduce many times in order to replace themselves in their population. Losing any adult turtles, and particularly adult females, is a serious problem that can tragically lead to the eventual local extinction of a population."

The Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program, part of the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, is working with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation on a new program called the Turtle Roadkill Monitoring Project, to locate turtle roadkill hotspots. The goal of the project is to identify and monitor problem road crossing sites for turtles.

These agencies are asking the public's help with this project, which basically entails identifying a potential turtle roadkill hotspot in your town and confirming it with project coordinators; then conducting road surveys at these sites during designated time periods in May and June.

How you can help

In addition to roadkill hotspots, Mass. Fisheries and Wildlife and the Turtle Conservation Project are asking the public to submit information on locations where multiple turtles nest, as well as to report sightings of individual turtles.

If you should find a female turtle nesting in your yard, Mass. Fisheries and Wildlife says the best thing to do is to keep people and animals away from the area until she's done nesting, which can take several hours.

Also, remember that turtles can deliver a painful bite, and in the case of large snapping turtles, can even inflict serious wounds.

Half a dozen of Massachusetts' native turtle species are state listed as endangered, threatened, or species of special concern. Other than snapping, painted, and musk turtles, it is illegal to capture and keep wild turtles as pets in Massachusetts.

It's also important never to release store-bought turtles into the wild, as they may transmit diseases to wild turtle populations.

Turtles' role in our ecosystem

Turtles have been around since before the time of the dinosaurs and they play an important role in the environment as predators, herbivores, and prey.

"Aquatic turtles often represent a very high proportion of animal biomass in wetlands they occupy, therefore making them very important in wetland food webs," according to Dr. Hal Avery, biology professor and turtle researcher at Drexel University in Philadelphia. "Turtles occupy many trophic levels (an organism's feeding position in a food web) from primary consumers (herbivores) to top carnivores."

Turtles also play an important role in limiting herbivore populations, according to Avery, which helps maintain the stability of entire ecosystems and ecological communities.

"For example," says Avery, "without diamondback terrapins, Spartina (the dominant salt-marsh plant) salt marshes would be overgrazed and lost to mollusc grazers."

Professor Avery and his colleague, Professor Jim Spotila, and other researchers from Drexel University, in conjunction with volunteers, coordinated through the nonprofit organization Earthwatch, have been conducting a long-term research project at Barnegat Bay, N.J., for several years now, studying the ecology of diamondback terrapins, and the effects of human impacts on these turtles. The researchers are discovering that commercial fishing, shoreline development, pollution, the hazards of roads and motor vehicles, and even boat noise, all take their toll on turtles.

"Because they occupy some of the most biologically diverse and productive ecosystems in the world", says Avery, "and because they utilize aquatic and terrestrial habitats within these ecosystems, aquatic turtles are paramount indicators of ecosystem function, making them important model organisms to study in conservation biology."

Unfortunately many species of turtles are threatened due to habitat destruction, pollution, roads, and other hazards.

But research being carried out by scientists, as well as programs like those being conducted by Mass. Fisheries and Wildlife, and citizen involvement in turtle conservation efforts, can help ensure that turtles will continue to be around to play their important role in the environment, and for future generations to observe and enjoy as part of our natural heritage.

• • •

Don Lyman is an adjunct instructor of biology at Merrimack College in North Andover. A Wilmington resident, he is also a pharmacist who works part-time at Beverly Hospital. Readers can obtain more information on the Massachusetts Turtle Roadkill Monitoring Project at www.linkinglandscapes.com, and on the Turtle Conservation Project at www.turtleatlas.org.


Source: The Salem News

A Protective Shell

Turtles rescued from the Cape remain safe at the aquarium while officials keep an eye on oil spill in Gulf, their eventual home
By Beth Daley, Globe Staff May 24, 2010

They were the unlucky ones: close to 200 critically endangered and frozen Kemp’s ridley turtles plucked from Cape Cod beaches by volunteers last winter. Most died, but more than two dozen have spent months recovering from pneumonia and other complications in marine intensive care units around the Northeast.

Now those Kemp’s ridley survivors just may be the most fortunate of their species. The unfolding Gulf of Mexico oil leak is on track to deeply pollute estuaries and coastal bays where Kemp’s ridleys live. Two turtles have been found covered with oil and are being treated now in Louisiana, and environmental officials expect more in the weeks to come.

Officials at the New England Aquarium had planned to release about a dozen of the dinner-plate-sized turtles in the Gulf last month, until the massive British Petroleum leak disrupted their plans. Then a contingency idea to release the animals off South Carolina was also put on hold after signs emerged that the oil may be rounding Florida and heading up the East Coast.

“I don’t want to release them into a questionable environment at this stage,’’ said Connie Merigo, director of the Aquarium’s Rescue and Rehab program. “It’s safer for them in a controlled environment. We are controlling their water temperature, nutrition, medical condition, everything. We’re going to keep them safe here for now.’’

While environmental officials are worried about all Gulf wildlife, they are especially concerned about Kemp’s ridley turtles. Breeding pairs number only in the thousands, and the animals with the dark-colored shells are considered one of the smallest, and the world’s most endangered, sea turtles. The turtles primarily nest on certain Mexican beaches, but there is also a small nesting site in Texas.

The turtles were once abundant, but consumption of turtle eggs as an aphrodisiac and entanglement in fishing gear caused their population to plummet. The outlawing of turtle egg harvests, protection against poachers, and the development of turtle-friendly fishing gear have helped the population start a rebound: More than 7,000 females nested last year.

By yesterday in the Gulf, 207 turtles, most dead, had been found in the oil spill area. Only three, including the two Kemp’s ridleys, were clearly harmed by the oil; they are alive and being treated, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spokeswoman. Turtles frequently wash ashore this time of year, and it is not clear if the numbers officials are seeing are part of this annual occurrence or are somehow related to the spill.

Cape Cod has long had a connection to the tiny turtles. Every year, the Kemp’s ridleys come north to feed on crabs and other marine life off the Cape. For reasons no one completely understands, some do not start paddling south before the cold hits. Because the turtles are cold-blooded, the drop in water temperature robs them of the ability to move. Unable to paddle their flippers or even to feed, they are at the mercy of ocean currents and wash up on shore when a strong wind blows.

For years, volunteers on Cape Cod have walked the beaches on winter days looking for Kemp’s ridleys and other turtles. This past year, 187 ridleys were found, according to Bob Prescott of Massachusetts Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.

Most were dead or died soon afterward, but 52 were sent to the New England Aquarium, which took most in and sent the rest to other rehab clinics.

Now, Merigo said she will probably hold the Aquarium turtles until Cape Cod waters warm up and release them this summer. That would be the best way to ensure they avoid any oil.

Today, 13 ridleys are ready to be released as well as three green sea turtles and Merigo expects more will be ready by August. Holding them until then is not expected to harm them, she said.

The Aquarium has long released turtles off New England. But this year’s planned release off Louisiana was designed to reinstitute an annual ritual interrupted by Hurricane Katrina. It remains to be seen what will become of the turtles in the Gulf.

Prescott asked: “Will the oil knock out the whole food web?’’ He said the true Gulf impact will be seen in future winters on Cape Cod. “We usually see 2- or 3-year-old turtles up here getting caught in the winters,’’ Prescott said. “Will it be this eerie no-ridley coastline?’’

Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com.

Source: Boston.com

Turtle Crossing Surveying in Berkshire County

Turtle Watch Training

Join Jane Winn of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) on Saturday, May 15th from 10 to noon at Dan Casey Memorial Causeway in Pittsfield to learn to monitor a stretch of road for evidence of turtles crossing. We will look at the species of turtles found in our area, how to monitor, and how to document and report our findings. Jane will have maps of locations that need monitoring, or if you know of a location where you have seen turtles cross in the past, you may choose to monitor there.

Monitoring will be four times in 2010 - 1) once during the last week of May, 2) once during the second week of June, 3) once during the last week of June, and 4) once during the first two weeks of September. In September we will enter our data into the statewide database.

Also join them this Friday, May 7th - a group of will be meeting at 1pm at Lake Garfield Beach to figure out how to survey for turtles on Tyringham Road by Lake Garfield.

More information here: http://linkinglandscapes.info/roads/volunteer_to_monitor.html

And here: http://www.thebeatnews.org/index.html

Endangered turtles south of Boston raised by volunteers and schools

This young northern red-bellied cooter is spending the winter in a tank at Hingham High School.

(Molly A.K. Connors for The Boston Globe)

Playing more than just shell games

By Molly A.K. Connors, Globe Correspondent

They don’t have the height of the Celtics they’re named for, but Garnett, Pierce, and Allen — who live in a 30-gallon plastic tub at Hingham High School — share those athletes’ fierce determination, and by the end of the year, they, too, will be a lot bigger than most in their age group.

Taken as hatchlings from their nests last fall, these northern red-bellied cooters are part of a “head-start” program that pairs about 120 endangered turtles each year with volunteers who care for them through the winter, then return them to their natural habitat in the spring.

The goal of the statewide program, established in 1984, is to speed baby cooters, also known as Plymouth red-bellied turtles, through the early life stages, when they are most vulnerable to predators.

“Hatchlings are just snack food for everything out there,” said Thomas French, assistant director at the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.

So, while their peers born last fall have slowed down their metabolism enough to survive the winter, nestled in mud far beneath the ice covering their ponds, these Celtics are spending the winter chomping on lettuce at Hingham High and basking in 88-degree water, which speeds their metabolism and growth.

When released, they will have grown from the size of a quarter to the size of a grapefruit, or about that of a 4- or 5-year-old cooter. Back in their habitat, they continue growing until their shells are 12 to 14 inches long.

“When you head-start them, most of them survive to become adults,” French said.

In fact, French said, the program, which started when the cooter population had dropped to about 300 statewide, has successfully head-started about 3,300 turtles, who live for at least a decade before they can breed; they are tracked by notches carved into their shells.

“We are now head-starting the babies of animals we’ve head-started,” French said.

Participants say the program is successful not only because it has prevented the extinction of an endangered species but because it educates the public about vulnerable creatures in the state.

“I didn’t know we had endangered species in the state,” said Sarah Whitman, a 17-year-old senior at Hingham High School, who uses her free period each morning to tend to the food and water needs of Garnett, Pierce, and Allen.

“It’s affected everyone in the science classrooms around here,” said Dawn Diedricksen, a Hingham High science teacher who began headstarting cooters last year after she received a grant from the Curriculum Leadership Center at Bridgewater State College.

The program’s administrators and volunteers, called coordinators, say they have learned a lot over the past 25 years.

“It was very much a kitchen-table sort of thing” at first, said Dave Taylor, the program coordinator for the cooters and a retired teacher who head-started turtles in his classroom at Triton High School in Byfield.

Taylor says he began collecting monthly weight and length measurements from the coordinators in the late 1980s. “I learned that if you have 20 organizations raising the turtles, that the weights from some could be double the weights and sizes of others,” Taylor said.

The numbers he gathered and organized allowed the program to develop a protocol to care for the animals.

“This has a lot to do with the water temperature,” said Taylor. “It’s really remarkable. If the temperature is even 10 degrees cooler, these turtles won’t grow at all.”

Taylor says he spends about five to 10 hours each month monitoring the turtles’ growth and intervening when he thinks the turtles aren’t growing quickly enough.

The 120 cooters Taylor monitors are housed at several locales south of Boston, including Quincy High School, Norfolk County Agricultural High School in Walpole, and the Buttonwood Park Zoo in New Bedford.

The cost of head-starting is fairly low, said French — volunteers need tanks and lettuce.

But these turtles eat a lot of lettuce — by spring, each one will need at least a head of lettuce a day. In Hingham, Diedricksen is using the last of her grant money to buy the romaine. But many other coordinators, including the South Shore Natural Science Center in Norwell, get grocery stores to donate their discarded leafy greens, which is good enough for cooter consumption.

The bigger issue is the coordinators’ time, since the water needs to be replaced every day and the turtles must be measured every week.

For Diedricksen, that often means coming in to school on weekends. For her students, it has meant bringing the cooters — and their 30-gallon tank, complete with a pig blanket to heat the water — home over the Christmas and February vacations.

Whitman, who plans to study marine biology at UMass Dartmouth this fall, said she doesn’t mind.

“My mom loves them,” said Whitman. “She sits there and talks to them.”

The head-started turtles come from a pond in Carver. French, citing concerns that humans might take the rare turtles from their nests, declined to be more specific.

“Turtles are unique,” said French. “I don’t know any other animal that people routinely take out of the wild and bring home.’’

The cooters are one of 17 species in Massachusetts that are federally recognized as endangered. Very few animals are good candidates for head-starting, said French, but the cooters work well because they do not depend on learned behaviors; they are hard-wired to - for the leafy greens.

But as much as the participants enjoy interacting with the turtles, protecting habitats is the most effective way to protect a species, said French.

“Our first line of approach is habitat management,” French said.

But for now, because it’s so successful and relatively inexpensive, head-starting will continue, which suits Whitman just fine.

“I want them to be around.”

Source: Boston.com

Molly A.K. Connors can be reached at mollyakconnors@gmail.com.