Turtle Journal

Baby Painted Turtle

It’s that time again.  In the next six weeks, local Cape Cod turtles will leave the quiet safety of woods, ponds and estuaries to trek into the noisy bustle of civilization to deposit eggs for the next generation of hard-shelled reptiles.  They need our help to escape the hazards of modern life as intrepid turtles fearlessly venture across Route 6, Route 28, neighborhood streets and dirt roadways to reach nesting sites.

 Local turtles spent the long, cold winter burrowed deeply underground or buried under layers of ooze at the bottom of ponds, brooks and estuaries.  They woke in April as temperatures rose, and after a quick warm-up basking in spring sunshine, they turned their thoughts to love and courtship.  Now eggs are ready for in-ground incubation, and the time has come for females to trek to nesting sites to deposit the next generation of Cape Cod turtles.  Such epic journeys entail considerable risk.

Four Species of Cape Cod Turtles

Why did the turtle cross the road?

Impelled by immutable laws of Nature stronger than their instinct for personal survival, turtles must reach viable nesting grounds across near impossible obstacles that sprawling civilization has lain before them.  With Sisyphean persistence turtles tackle highway crossings, over and over again, until they successfully reach the other side or die in the process.  For turtles there is no Plan B.  Restrained by neither angst nor doubt, they soldier on as though one of Tennyson’s heroic six hundred. 

Half an inch, half an inch,

Half an inch onward,

‘Cross the highway of death

Crawled bravely the turtles.

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Cars to the right of them,

Cars to the left of them,

Cars in front of them,

Crawled boldly the turtles.

===== 

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why

Theirs but to cross or die,

Crawled nobly the turtles.

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Nesting season has begun

The nesting season usually kicks off with painted turtles that wake early in protected ponds, followed by spotted turtles, snappers, box turtles and diamondback terrapins.  No exception this year, the Turtle Journal team found a depredated painted turtle nest on May 17^th, and Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary sighted a painted turtle on a nesting run on Friday, May 20^th.  So far this season, we haven’t witnessed longer cross roadway treks, but it’s just a matter of days until warmer weather arrives as predicted for later this week.

Snapping Turtle Deposits Eggs in Outer Cape Nest

A while back, a very large expectant snapping turtle decided to cross Route 6 in Truro near Pamet Road from east to west.  As she edged onto the highway on a gorgeous early June morning, traffic screeched to a halt.  A responding police officer carefully tugged her back to the shoulder and down the east bank.  (One must be extremely careful with a determined 60-pound snapper, if one wishes to disengage with the same number of fingertips one began the task.)  Of course, 30 minutes later the traffic was jammed again when this relentless lady re-climbed the bank and began one more time to dodge cars.  Luckily, the Truro dispatcher reached Turtle Journal’s hotline (508-274-5108) who managed to entice the snapper into a bucket and raced her across Route 6 to the west side.  One more turtle saved with little inconvenience to tourists or snapper.

No one should risk life and limb, and children should only get involved with adult supervision, but a moment of human kindness can erase a ton of human negligence in the way we’ve scarred and fragmented the environment.  It’s good for the turtles, good for humanity, and good for the soul.

2010 Turtles of Outer Cape Field School Discovers Loagy Bay

Learn more and save lives

If you’d like to learn more about Cape Cod turtles, Mass Audubon is offering a hands-on Turtles of Outer Cape field school from 22 thru 25 June at Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary.  The Turtle Journal Team, Don Lewis and Sue Wieber Nourse; renowned Cape Cod naturalist and turtle expert Bob Prescott; and author Dr. Barbara Brenessel will lead field adventures to discover the secrets of these hard-shelled reptiles and to save two rare and protected species of turtles on the Outer Cape: Northern Diamondback Terrapins and Eastern Box Turtles.  For more information contact Mass Audubon’s Melissa Lowe at 508-349-2615.

While an optimistic attitude is always the best policy, we’re hopeful that for the next six weeks we can encourage you to look down rather than up.  If you spot a turtle at risk, take a moment to help out.  If the situation is too dicey, call the Turtle Journal hotline at 508-274-5108.  If you see a turtle nesting and you’d like advice on how to protect those eggs from predators, call the hotline.  To learn more about turtles and to follow the ongoing saga of nature on Cape Cod, visit Turtle Journal at www.turtlejournal.com.

Female Terrapin #86 — Wellfleet’s Grande Dame

The Northern Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin terrapin) research project in Wellfleet Bay has entered the 32nd year of this unique longitudinal study.  Since each captured specimen receives an individual identification number, we have been able to observe and document some of these turtles for more than three decades.  For instance, Terrapin #86 is the official “Grande Dame of Wellfleet Bay” diamondback terrapins.  She was captured on the very first day of this research project on 20 June 1980.  Back then she was already an “ancient” female.  Yet, when she was recaptured and photographed above in May 2009, #86 was cavorting in Fresh Brook Run with a dashing 8-year-old male, prompting our headline story in Cape Cod Today to ask, “When is a turtle a cougar?“  (Click on the title to read this informative and amusing story.)

Female Diamondback Terrapin #1900

Beyond the powerful scientific results that such a continuous long-term study of a protected species provides, Turtle Journal freely admits that we simply enjoy the stories that these terrapins tell as each capture in succession fills in details of their lives, of their histories and of their survival.  For instance, Terrapin #1900 was captured by Sue Wieber Nourse on Friday.  Don Lewis had originally marked this mature female during a nesting run on Lieutenant Island in June 2003. 

Diamondback Terrapin #1900 with Scute Anomalies

As you can see from the photograph above, Terrapin #1900 is easily recognizable by the unique scute anomalies on her carapace.   Like the movie character in The Legend of 1900, our #1900 never seems to leave Lieutenant Island and its immediate vicinity.   She comes ashore twice each year, in June and July, to lay nests on the south side of Lieutenant Island.  When she’s not on nesting runs, #1900 remains in the tidal flats south of Lieutenant Island for brumation, foraging and mating.  She’s a captive of her local environment akin to her Legend of 1900 analog.  As Wellfleet turtles go, Terrapin #1900 is the exception rather than the rule.  Detailed migration patterns revealed over 32 years of records demonstrate how diamondbacks crisscross Wellfleet Bay to exploit various aspects of this rich estuary system for foraging, mating, nesting and brumating.

Female Diamondback Terrapin #2874

Four other terrapins that Sue captured on the 13th revealed stories about where they’ve been and how they use the estuaries, the uplands, the tidal flats and the salt marshes of Wellfleet Bay in order to sustain the strongest population of this threatened species in Massachusetts.  As has been revealed often in the pages of Turtle Journal, these individual stories weave together an epic tale of how terrapins migrate throughout the bay’s estuaries to exploit the full bounty of this northernmost habitat in the world for diamondbacks.

Terrapin #1900 and Friends

After scientific processing and epic storytelling, these Wellfleet legends head  back into Fresh Brook Run led by #1900 for a little more springtime cavorting.  With any luck, we’ll see several of them again when nesting seasoon begins in four more weeks.

The Turtle Invites

Through the magic of digital media, Turtle Journal’s Don Lewis and Sue Wieber Nourse will transform the Lakeville United Church of Christ into the wild world of turtles for kids from four to 104 to experience the excitment of adventure and discovery.  We’ll cast away the everyday world, climb inside a dazzling sound and light show, and unleash our inner explorer.  We’ll watch as turtles wake from winter slumber, bask in bright spring sunshine and turn their thoughts to creating the next generation of reptiles.  We’ll hide in camouflage as females trek across impossible obstacles to reach nesting sites and deposit eggs representing the future of threatened turtles in Massachusetts.  We’ll fast forward as hatchling emerge from the sand to take their first breath of live as they scramble for safety.

Don Lewis and Sue Wieber Nourse in the Field

We’ll uncover secrets about what makes these shelled critters such a wonderful bellwether species of our natural world.  Turtles have survived the dinosaurs, survived the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, survived ice ages and intervening global warming, out-lived saber tooth tigers and mammoths … and have crawled the earth for 300 million years.  As their populations tumble, so goes the quality of the world around us.  As turtles thrive, we see positive advances in the richness of our own lives, too.

Turtles of Massachusetts

Lakeville Historical Society, 7 pm on May 25th, Lakeville United Church of Christ

Cape Codder Newspaper, 6 May 2011

Rich Eldred of the Cape Codder newspaper and WickedLocal.com wrote a captivating story on the spring emergence of diamondback terrapins in Wellfleet Bay on Outer Cape Cod that was published on Friday, May 6th.   The story has been captured above.  Click on the image for a larger, more readable version of Rich’s article.

Sue Wieber Nourse and Rufus Retriever Turtling

The on-line version of Rich Eldred’s article with additional photographs from Turtle Journal can be viewed by clicking here.

Cape Codder Front Page, 6 May 2011

Female Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata)

Saturday Turtle Journal visited the abandoned Goldwitz cranberry bog in Marion on the SouthCoast of Massachusetts to check on the spotted turtle mating aggregation.  Sue Wieber Nourse found and captured two mature spotted turtles, both more than 12 years old, a female and a small male.  Spotted turtles (Clemmys guttata) are small aquatic turtles found in shallow wetlands.  In this area, spotteds are most often observed in April and May when they migrate to mating aggregations.  Once temperatures rise with the summer, they disappear from sight.

 

Spotted Turtle Pair (Female Left) Carapaces

The male spotted was a very tiny adult as you can detect from these two comparison photographs.  Yet, he was a great deal bolder than the female, which remained for the most part tucked inside her shell.

 

Spotted Turtle Pair (Female Left) Plastrons

Looking at their respective plastrons, you can easily see the gender difference.  The female has a flat pastron on the left, and the male has a concavity behind the bridge.    The male is also showing his thicker and longer tail.

 

Female Spotted Turtle Injured Right Rear Limb

This female spotted had sustained a severe injury to her right rear.  A large chip had broken off her right rear marginal scutes and a significant portion of her right rear limb had been snipped off.  These signs point to an encounter with a vehicle that ran over this section of the shell and pinched her leg off.  It’s fairly amazing because the abandoned Goldwitz bog lies a good distance, a half mile, from the nearest public road.  You would think they would be safe from such accidents.  Unfortunately, these wetland are frequented by speeding ATVs that race along the bog channel service roads.

Spotted Turtle Pair Released Back into Bog

After we had measured, weighed and marked these two individuals, neither of which had been seen during our half decade study of this system, Don Lewis released them back into the bog channel that hosts the spring mating aggregation each May.