Who’s Examining Whom? (Photo by TJ’s Sue Wieber Nourse)
On Saturday, April 26th, the Buzzards Bay Action Committee (BBAC) held an Earth Day event at the Fairhaven Senior Center on Huttleson Avenue (Route 6) in Fairhaven, Massachusetts. Â Environmental, conservation and environmental groups from throughout all SouthCoast communities staffed tables packed with actionable information. Â BBAC invited the Turtle Journal team to join the six hour event, and as illustrated by the photograph above, turtles “spotlighted” the day’s activities; spotted turtles, of course.
Adult Female (Top) and Male (Bottom) Spotted Turtles
This spring has been especially chilly. Â With the exception of just a handful of diamondback terrapins, snapping turtles and painted turtles, only spotted turtles have been active in the wetlands of the SouthCoast. Â We are very fortunate to have such gorgeous little reptiles as our earliest harbingers of spring. Â It’s amazing they appear so small and delicate, yet are so hardy in the harsh spring climate. Â We recently discovered this couple above at the Goldwitz Bog in a mating aggregation that has been severely degraded by debris dumped into bog channels over the last year ironically in a federally funded project to “improve” wildlife habitat.
Male Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata)
After spending the day meeting SouthCoast families and advocating for real wildlife habitat conservation, these handsome spotted turtles, like the adult male pictured above, headed back into wetlands mating aggregations to do their important part to advance the survival of SouthCoast turtles.