{"id":11888,"date":"2012-09-15T10:13:14","date_gmt":"2012-09-15T15:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=11888"},"modified":"2012-09-15T10:33:44","modified_gmt":"2012-09-15T15:33:44","slug":"life-from-death-local-heroes-save-threatened-turtles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=11888","title":{"rendered":"Life From Death — Local Heroes Save Threatened Turtles"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Perfect Terrapin Hatchlings Salvaged from Dead Mother<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It takes more, much more, than\u00c2\u00a0research\u00c2\u00a0to save a species.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes dedication, commitment and, yes,\u00c2\u00a0courage of entire communities to intervene in seemingly small and yet sometimes heroic ways to turn the tide of extinction.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal gets to\u00c2\u00a0meet these local heroes\u00c2\u00a0every day, and on occasion, we have the opportunity to tell their tale.\u00c2\u00a0 Today’s story is about Mike Maurer and how his action brought life\u00c2\u00a0from death; not too shabby a feat for this SouthCoast everyman.<\/p>\n

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Twelve-Year-Old Female Terrapin Crushed\u00c2\u00a0by Traffic<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

On June 26th, a youngish, 12-year-old female diamondback terrapin came ashore from the Weweantic estuary to nest.\u00c2\u00a0 To her misfortune, she chose the busy Route 6 highway as her entry point.\u00c2\u00a0 Tragically, she was\u00c2\u00a0run over\u00c2\u00a0by summer traffic, struck with such force that her head was mangled and her shell pancaked, crushing the birth canal and squirting eggs across the road.\u00c2\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, most eggs were crushed instantly; few survived the ordeal.\u00c2\u00a0 Mike spotted the turtle and risked life and limb to snatch her up between speeding cars, in hopes that she might be saved.\u00c2\u00a0 He whisked her to Turtle Journal.\u00c2\u00a0 But sadly, she was mortally injured.<\/p>\n

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Salvaged Eggs, Cleaned and Ready to Plant<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With the help of Turtle Journal’s Sue Wieber Nourse, four eggs were salvaged from the disaster.\u00c2\u00a0 They were cleaned and gently planted in\u00c2\u00a0a protected nest within our “turtle garden” to incubate in safety throughout the summer.\u00c2\u00a0 Honestly, considering the trauma they had endured, we had little real expectation of their survival.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, you’d think that Turtle Journal of all people\u00c2\u00a0would have learned that you should never underestimate the powerful life force of turtles.<\/p>\n

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Three Pipped Terrapin Babies in Egg Chamber<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

On Friday afternoon, September 14th, Don Lewis checked their nest to see if the eggs had survived.\u00c2\u00a0 He gently brushed away layers of sand with his fingers to ensure no harm to these fragile eggs.\u00c2\u00a0 About three inches deep, Don encountered a discolored\u00c2\u00a0egg shard and suspected the worst: \u00c2\u00a0the eggs had never developed.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet with his next stroke, sadness turned to pure joy.\u00c2\u00a0 He saw the unmistakable pattern of a tiny terrapin carapace and soon uncovered three beautiful pipped hatchling, fully and perfectly developed and waiting to\u00c2\u00a0take on the world.<\/p>\n

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Three Energetic Babies Preserve Momma’s DNA<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Admittedly, as I finished the excavation, I searched for memorable names with which to tag these miracle babies.\u00c2\u00a0 Lazarus came to mind among a handful of monikers from Greek mythology.\u00c2\u00a0 But after but a few moments watching their antics, the only name that really applied was … forgive me … the Three Stooges.\u00c2\u00a0 They tumbled one over the other, they shoved hand across the face of sibling to climb\u00c2\u00a0on top, and generally they were as comical a threesome as you could possibly imagine.\u00c2\u00a0 And so, in my mind, “Three Stooges” stuck.<\/p>\n

On a more serious note, because of enormous egg and hatchling predation, it takes a mature female diamondback terrapin more than a decade of egg production simply to replace herself.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes another decade to replace her partner, and it takes about a decade before she reaches maturity.\u00c2\u00a0 So, nearly thirty years transpire simply for the population\u00c2\u00a0to break even.\u00c2\u00a0 Losing a young female\u00c2\u00a0is a tragedy for a species on the\u00c2\u00a0cusp of local extirpation in Buzzards Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 Thanks to Mike Maurer, we have\u00c2\u00a0a chance to preserve this female’s DNA for the ages.\u00c2\u00a0 And with the dedicated intervention of such heroes on the South Coast, we have an opportunity to reverse what seemed like the inevitable extinction of diamondback terrapins within our community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perfect Terrapin Hatchlings Salvaged from Dead Mother It takes more, much more, than\u00c2\u00a0research\u00c2\u00a0to save a species.\u00c2\u00a0 It takes dedication, commitment and, yes,\u00c2\u00a0courage of entire communities to intervene in seemingly small and yet sometimes heroic ways to turn the tide of extinction.\u00c2\u00a0 Turtle Journal gets to\u00c2\u00a0meet these local heroes\u00c2\u00a0every day, and on occasion, we have the […]<\/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\/11888"}],"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=11888"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11933,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11888\/revisions\/11933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}