{"id":10866,"date":"2012-05-16T20:52:45","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T01:52:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=10866"},"modified":"2012-05-16T20:52:45","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T01:52:45","slug":"rescued-female-box-turtle-finds-beau-at-great-neck-sanctuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=10866","title":{"rendered":"Rescued Female Box Turtle Finds Beau at Great Neck Sanctuary"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Eastern Box Turtle Couple (Female Rear, Male Front)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Rains drenched the SouthCoast of Massachusetts. Wonderful, springtime rains that soak woodlands and refresh wetlands. Days like these mark the moment when Eastern box turtles emerge from burrows and replenish loss hydration incurred during nearly seven months of slumber.\u00c2\u00a0 And this last winter and spring have witnessed considerable dryness and drought in Eastern Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

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Sue Wieber Nourse Re-Discovers Rescued New Bedford Turtle<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

With that in mind, the Turtle Journal team visited Great Neck Sanctuary in Wareham this morning.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue Wieber Nourse quickly found a gorgeous female box turtle crossing the path and luxuriating in a muddy puddle bath.\u00c2\u00a0 As luck would have it, we discovered this turtle was the one that had been rescued from the busy streets of New Bedford last summer.\u00c2\u00a0 We had placed her here in the Great Neck Sanctuary on October 3rd, hoping she would acclimate to the new habitat, survive the winter, and adopt Great Neck as her new home.\u00c2\u00a0 (See Homeless “Street Turtle” Finds a Sanctuary<\/a><\/strong>.)<\/p>\n

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Male Eastern Box Turtle<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Clearly,\u00c2\u00a0she has\u00c2\u00a0been doing quite\u00c2\u00a0fine.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0We weighed her at 675 grams when we released her in the fall.\u00c2\u00a0 Today she\u00c2\u00a0tipped the scales at 681 grams after seven months of brumation.\u00c2\u00a0 And just a few feet down the path, we found this handsome dude hanging around … obviously waiting for our attractive lady.\u00c2\u00a0 So, she has already found a beau in her new neighborhood.<\/p>\n

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Adorable Box Turtle Couple @ Great Neck Sanctuary<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The male box turtle felt light compared to the female.\u00c2\u00a0 He weighed\u00c2\u00a0just 493 grams even though he measured only a little more than a 1\/2 centimeter shorter in shell length.\u00c2\u00a0 Like most males, he sports bright red, “boodshot”\u00c2\u00a0eyes, while our attractive\u00c2\u00a0lady has the beautiful, tradional\u00c2\u00a0female\u00c2\u00a0brown eyes.<\/p>\n

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Sue Wieber Nourse with Adorable Box Turtle Couple<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The adorable couple was brought back to Turtle Journal headquarters to be examined, weighed, measured and photographed.\u00c2\u00a0 Because this female is such an important specimen, we wanted to be sure that we identified her correctly and we compared her photographic and data records.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

Eastern Box Turtle Couple<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

We were delighted to confirm our field observations.\u00c2\u00a0 Eastern Box #2 is indeed the mature female turtle that was rescued from the busy streets of urban New Bedford, and brought to Great Neck Sanctuary at the\u00c2\u00a0onset of brumation time\u00c2\u00a0in October\u00c2\u00a0to try to reset her sense of territoriality when she emerged this spring.\u00c2\u00a0 All signs point to at least initial success.<\/p>\n

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Adorable Couple Released Back in Great Neck Sanctuary<\/strong><\/p>\n

After processing at headquarters, the two Eastern box turtles were immediately returned to the spot where they were discovered within the Great Neck Sanctuary.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal, in partnership with Mass Audubon’s Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a>, will continue to monitor this sanctuary for box turtle activity to determine the population density in this area of Wareham and to check on Eastern Box Turtle #2, our rescued female.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eastern Box Turtle Couple (Female Rear, Male Front) Rains drenched the SouthCoast of Massachusetts. Wonderful, springtime rains that soak woodlands and refresh wetlands. Days like these mark the moment when Eastern box turtles emerge from burrows and replenish loss hydration incurred during nearly seven months of slumber.\u00c2\u00a0 And this last winter and spring have witnessed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10866"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10914,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions\/10914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}