{"id":180,"date":"2008-09-01T20:41:27","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T00:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?page_id=180"},"modified":"2012-10-09T16:31:00","modified_gmt":"2012-10-09T21:31:00","slug":"terrapin-survival-swimming-against-the-tide","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?page_id=180","title":{"rendered":"Terrapin Survival: Swimming Against the Tide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span>After barely surviving more than a century of direct assault as a gourmet meal, an already\u00c2\u00a0declining Northern diamondback terrapin population\u00c2\u00a0is\u00c2\u00a0today suffering continuous loss of habitat all along the Atlantic Coast. As more and more development occurs\u00c2\u00a0on salt marshes, estuaries, tidal rivers and coastal bays, nesting sites are lost to homes and driveways and roads and seawalls and landscaping, diversity of food sources declines, and water quality deteriorates. The result has been\u00c2\u00a0steadily dropping\u00c2\u00a0terrapin populations from Massachusetts to Texas, except in isolated areas where there have been intensive efforts to conserve habitat and to protect terrapins. Still, this video clip represents a metaphor for terrapin survival: swimming against the tide. As soon as conservation eforts slacken in any estuary system, a collapse of\u00c2\u00a0local populations is the outcome.\u00c2\u00a0 Since terrapins are non-migratory, once a local population is extirpated, the species disappears forever.\u00c2\u00a0 The future of terrapin survival is spring-loaded to\u00c2\u00a0&#8220;OFF&#8221; (extinction) and we must remain ever-vigilant in applying pressure to\u00c2\u00a0wedge the survival &#8220;switch&#8221; into the\u00c2\u00a0&#8220;ON&#8221; position.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/jK60p_an-LU\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/jK60p_an-LU\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p style=\"TEXT-ALIGN: center\"><strong><em>Diamondback Terrapin Swimming Upstream Against Swift Current<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After barely surviving more than a century of direct assault as a gourmet meal, an already\u00c2\u00a0declining Northern diamondback terrapin population\u00c2\u00a0is\u00c2\u00a0today suffering continuous loss of habitat all along the Atlantic Coast. As more and more development occurs\u00c2\u00a0on salt marshes, estuaries, tidal rivers and coastal bays, nesting sites are lost to homes and driveways and roads and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1153,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11978,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180\/revisions\/11978"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}