Posts Tagged ‘nature’

The New Naturalists: Next Generation of Herpetologists

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Young Herpetologist Meets Her First Terrapin Hatchling

The most sacred duty of any naturalist, especially one with thinning silver locks, involves sharing the experience of Nature and recruiting successors among the next generation to continue the critical mission of observation, documentation and conservation.  While my colleagues and I employ undergraduate and graduate interns each season to “learn the trade” of field science, our special joy comes from opportunites to engage with the youngest scientists, those for whom an adventure in the wild becomes a transformational experience that may change the course of their lives and the future of our world. 

Don Lewis and Young Herpetologists with Terrapin Hatchlings

Partnering with such exceptional conservation advocates as the Massachusetts Audubon Society, the National Marine Life Center, the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History, and Massachusetts Marine Educators (among too many others to mention in a short post), we have had the privilege to introduce children from nine months to nine decades to Nature through the unparalleled teaching model of turtles.  Seemingly helpless hatchlings melt the hardest hearts.  I’ve watched jaded curmudgeons with expressions so sour they could change sunshine into hail; I watched their eyes mist as they witnessed a tiny hatchling poke its head through its eggshell at the instant of birth.  For children who come to the field with fewer preconceptions of the natural world, these interactions are pure joy.

Discovering a Hatchling as It Emerges from the Egg

Because turtles, and especially hatchlings, appear so accessible to children, they create an immediate and tangible link with Nature.  In decades of wildlife research and education, we have never encountered a person WITHOUT a turtle story to tell.  Often an octogenarian will smile the smile of a todler as her eyes beam and she tells the tale of how her dad introduced her to a baby turtle he had found in the pond behind their home.

Baby Meets Baby

We can never forget the young girl who eagerly and tenderly held a four-year-old snapping turtle at the Earth Day celebration at Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary in 2003.  We wonder how she showed no fear of what this then timid turtle would become as it grew into a mighty and fearsome snapper.  She simply felt the joy of touching Nature in such a personal way.

Four-Year-Old Meets Four-Year-Old Snapping Turtle

During field season, we use every opportunity to involve children in our research, especially when releasing critters back into the wild.  On the beaches of the Outer Cape, the setting is perfect for youngsters to meet turtles in a completely natural venue and to learn about them in ways that books simply can never convey.

Turtles Create Transformational Moments

A message from today’s post?  Take every opportunity to introduce children to Nature and show them critters in their natural habitat.  The rewards of the moment will be enormous as you see pure, honest joy burst across their faces.  But this singular experience will pay dividends for a lifetime as memories form touchstones that will shape the course of their lives and the future of our world.  Bring your family into Nature and see what futures you, too, can create.

Hatchlings Released into Nursery Salt Marsh off Turtle Point

Fox Island Marsh Conservation Area Welcomes Endangered Babies

Sunday, September 14th, 2008

The Fox Island Marsh Conservation Area lies in South Wellfleet and, along with its neighbor the Pilgrim Spring Woodlands Conservation Area, comprises 68 acres of woods and 100 acres of salt marsh.  An exquisite parcel of these conservation lands is the Whale Bone Point Trail (see Google image below) described as the jewel in the crown for its unmatched overlook views of the Fox Island Marsh and Blackfish Creek.  These lands are owned by the Town of Wellfleet and the Wellfleet Conservation Trust.

Whale Bone Point

This last week the Fox Island Conservation Area witnessed the arrival of babies from two Massachusetts protected species: diamondback terrapins (threatened) and Eastern box turtles (species of special concern).  While the Whale Bone Point area had been assessed as box turtle habitat and the point has been documented as a terrapin nesting site, these are the very first babies of both species that have actually been discovered on the land as they were being born.   The conservationists, environmentalists and naturalists who worked to protect this precious habitat deserve two thumbs up, one for each of these listed species.

One of Four Eastern Box Turtle Hatchlings

Last week a resident abutting the Whale Bone Point area discovered four Eastern box turtle hatchlings in a nest in her mulched landscaping.  That story was reported below under Eastern Box Turtle Hatchlings.  These adorable babies were a bit disoriented, one might even say “grumpy,” at being so uncerimoniously disturbed from their post-natal snooze, and they were a little dehydrated, too.  So, after a few days of turtle R&R, the foursome was released into the protected woodlands of Whale Bone Point near their nest site.

Release of Eastern Box Turtle Hatchlings

After releasing these box turtle hatchlings on Friday, we trekked down to the tip of Whale Bone Point where we had documented diamondback terrapin nesting since 2000 based on depredated nests and discarded egg shells.  We discovered three emergence holes within about 12 inches of each other that contained the remnants of escaped hatchlings, undeveloped eggs and some eggs that had been destroyed by root and insect predation.  In the middle nest, tucked under the lip and cradled in roots that had drained moisture from the nest and had contorted the embryos inside their egg shells within their nose-like grip, three pipped and cracked eggs remained.  One had not survived the attack, but two others were alive, albeit distorted, severely dehydrated and frozen in a trance-like stupor.  The clip below documents our removal of one of these hatchlings from its egg cocoon; the babies were so weak that they couldn’t free themselves from the dried egg shell and dig themselves out of the nest.

Rescue of Terrapin Hatchling Trapped by Roots and Dehydration

You can see from the clip above how undersized these hatchlings are.  The image below gives you a good sense of their actual size.

Undersized Terrapin Hatchlings

The good news:  Terrapins (and most turtles, actually) are Timex critters.  “They take a licking and keep on ticking.”  Turtles are extremely resilient.  Given a little TLC, even the most hapless turtle can be given a head-start toward survival.  These two babies just need a few days of care before they, too, will join their siblings in the nursery salt marsh abutting the Fox Island Marsh Conservation Area.  And in about eight years … Mark your calendar for June 15th, 2016 … they may be returning to Whale Bone Point to deposit their own nest of hatchlings.  And so the cycle goes on.  Save one turtle and your action ripples through the ages.  Precisely like the “Time Machine” that Nature truly is.

Two Terrapin Hatchlings Released at Whale Bone Point

Neither Angst Nor Doubt

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

Tiny 1-inch, quarter ounce diamondback terrapin hatchlings emerge from the sands of the Outer Cape and scramble against seemingly insurmountable odds and a host of hungry, impatient predators to find cover in the surrounding marsh. Restrained by neither angst nor doubt, they exhibit the epitome of an indomitable spirit to achieve success in the face of impossible obstacles.

No Obstacle Stops Determined Terrapin Hatchlings