{"id":13687,"date":"2013-09-17T10:06:04","date_gmt":"2013-09-17T15:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=13687"},"modified":"2013-09-17T20:03:57","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T01:03:57","slug":"rare-turtle-hatchlings-saved-at-allens-pond-wildlife-sanctuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=13687","title":{"rendered":"Rare Turtle Babies Saved During Moonlight Rescue at Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Allens Pond Diamondback Terrapin Hatchlings<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Mass Audubon’s Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary in Westport, Massachusetts\u00c2\u00a0offers\u00c2\u00a0good habitat for threatened diamondback terrapins,\u00c2\u00a0including abundant nesting\u00c2\u00a0areas within its\u00c2\u00a0expansive dunes and a rich salt marsh nursery.\u00c2\u00a0 The Turtle Journal team in partnership with the Allens Pond staff has been monitoring this area for several years with the goal of locating and protecting\u00c2\u00a0 terrapin nests to\u00c2\u00a0reverse the\u00c2\u00a0population decline\u00c2\u00a0in Buzzards Bay.\u00c2\u00a0 The sprawling geography of Allens Pond, fragmented by private cottages and roadways, creates a significant challenge for researchers.\u00c2\u00a0 In this\u00c2\u00a0exciting case, the\u00c2\u00a0quest to save\u00c2\u00a0baby terrapins\u00c2\u00a0was\u00c2\u00a0also handicapped\u00c2\u00a0by nighttime darkness.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Pete Deichmann and Female Terrapin #6<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As Allens Pond coastal waterbird monitor Pete Deichmann patrolled the dunes and shoreline on the evening of June 20th, he\u00c2\u00a0caught sight\u00c2\u00a0of a female terrapin scratching the sand around dusk.\u00c2\u00a0 Pete immediately called the Turtle Journal team via cell phone.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue Wieber Nourse responded to Pete’s call and she sped to Westport from Marion as darkness enveloped the South Coast.\u00c2\u00a0 Before venturing into the night to locate the nest in the deserted coastal dunes, Sue documented the female terrapin that Pete had hand-captured.\u00c2\u00a0 A new capture, Terrapin #6 from Allens Pond was blind in her left eye.\u00c2\u00a0 She weighed 969 grams after dropping her eggs, and her carapace (top shell) measured 7.25 inches long.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Finding Diamondback Terrapin Nest in the Dark<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Now comes the challenging part of this night’s adventure.\u00c2\u00a0 A\u00c2\u00a0waxing gibbous\u00c2\u00a0moon had risen over Buzzards Bay offering an exquisite backdrop, but little illumination, to guide the night’s rescue.\u00c2\u00a0 Based on experience, Sue knew predators would be fast on the prowl, and the longer it took to recover these vulnerable eggs, the more likely hungry mammals would reach them first.\u00c2\u00a0 Pete had found Terrapin #6 on a high tide nesting run in an isolated sandy overwash.\u00c2\u00a0 Even knowing\u00c2\u00a0its general location, finding the exact spot of the\u00c2\u00a0disguised nest\u00c2\u00a0itself among acres of homogenous sandy\u00c2\u00a0dunes … at night, by flashlight alone …\u00c2\u00a0would be a needle-in-a-haystack trick.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, with Sue’s turtle expertise and Pete’s knowledge of the terrain, they discovered the undisturbed nest before predators reached the site.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Saving\u00c2\u00a0Rare Terrapin Nest by Moonlight<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Nightfall magnifies the magic of turtle rescues.\u00c2\u00a0 The unseen surf thunders in the background.\u00c2\u00a0 Stars shimmer in the darkness, and the glow of a gibbous moon transforms\u00c2\u00a0 a once familiar landscape into haunting mystery with\u00c2\u00a0hints\u00c2\u00a0of wispy shadows.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Under dim\u00c2\u00a0moonlight Sue probed the nest blindly with her fingertips; she gently located the egg chamber to confirm a clutch of freshly laid terrapin eggs.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue assessed that these eggs were extremely vulnerable to both tidal overwash and depredation with a near zero probability of survival.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fourteen Perfect Diamondback Terrapin Eggs<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sue harvested\u00c2\u00a014 pinkish eggs, gently packed them in moist sand for safe transportation and brought them to the Turtle Journal headquarters.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue dug a nest in the TJ rescue\u00c2\u00a0garden similar to the one that Terrapin #6 had dug at Allens Pond.\u00c2\u00a0 Sue\u00c2\u00a0gently <\/span>filled\u00c2\u00a0the nest\u00c2\u00a0with the eggs and the natal sand she had retrieved from Allens Pond.\u00c2\u00a0 She covered the nest with a predator excluder cage to ensure that these eggs could incubate in perfect safety, completing the nest relocation around midnight.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Allens Pond Terrapin Babies Begin to Pip<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

On September 10th, after 82 days of incubation, Don Lewis and Sue Wieber Nourse checked on the progress of these babies.\u00c2\u00a0 They discovered that several of the eggs had “pipped;” that is, the hatchlings had scratched through the eggshell with their egg tooth, and had begun shredding the egg with their powerful tiny claws.\u00c2\u00a0 Don and Sue reburied the nest because it usually takes three to five days after pipping for the hatchlings to emerge.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Allens Pond Terrapin Babies Hatch<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Sure enough, on the morning of Lucky Friday the 13th, three days later, the Allens Pond babies dug an emergence hole to the surface and scrambled for the sunshine.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the 14 eggs, every one had successfully hatched.\u00c2\u00a0 A 100% hatch rate!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Newly Born Allens Pond Diamondback Terrapin Hatchlings<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

On September 19th, these 14 beautiful, healthy babies will return to Allens Pond for release.\u00c2\u00a0 They will have beaten most of the odds against survival.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0As many as\u00c2\u00a095% of terrapin nests are destroyed by predators.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the few\u00c2\u00a0eggs that naturally hatch, perhaps\u00c2\u00a01-in-250 to 1-in-1000 survive to adulthood.\u00c2\u00a0 Most babies are\u00c2\u00a0picked off by predators as\u00c2\u00a0they try to reach the safety of their nursery habitat where they must hide for their first three years of maximum vulnerability.\u00c2\u00a0 So, these lucky Friday the Thirteenth babies have been\u00c2\u00a0given a huge boost to survival and the terrapin population of Buzzards Bay has been equally helped with a new\u00c2\u00a0generation of healthy recruits.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Allens Pond Diamondback Terrapin Hatchlings Mass Audubon’s Allens Pond Wildlife Sanctuary in Westport, Massachusetts\u00c2\u00a0offers\u00c2\u00a0good habitat for threatened diamondback terrapins,\u00c2\u00a0including abundant nesting\u00c2\u00a0areas within its\u00c2\u00a0expansive dunes and a rich salt marsh nursery.\u00c2\u00a0 The Turtle Journal team in partnership with the Allens Pond staff has been monitoring this area for several years with the goal of locating and […]<\/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\/13687"}],"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=13687"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13755,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13687\/revisions\/13755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}