{"id":9443,"date":"2011-06-29T11:58:28","date_gmt":"2011-06-29T16:58:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=9443"},"modified":"2011-06-29T13:02:31","modified_gmt":"2011-06-29T18:02:31","slug":"turtling-in-the-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=9443","title":{"rendered":"Turtling in the Rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"005<\/a><\/p>\n

Eastern Box Turtle in Paradise<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Humans may not appreciate sustained summer rains, but Eastern box turtles consider these conditions paradise.\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of moisture to keep hydrated while pursuing their most favored delicacy:\u00c2\u00a0 slugs!\u00c2\u00a0 Picture if you will that epic battle of speed and cunning … NOT between the tortoise and the hare, but between\u00c2\u00a0a lumbering box turtle and a slithering slug.\u00c2\u00a0 No, it’s not a sleek cheetah chasing down a graceful gazelle in a breathless sprint.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet it’s just as dramatic, and just as lethal.\u00c2\u00a0 And the outcome painted on the turtle’s lips is just as satisfying … for the predator, that is.<\/p>\n

\"021<\/a><\/p>\n

Hans on the Hunt<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With the rains\u00c2\u00a0emerged Eastern box turtles from under leaves and protective scrapes & burrows where they’ve\u00c2\u00a0hidden waiting for the perfect moment to move out of the woodlands and into the fields for foraging and mating and nesting.<\/p>\n

\"022<\/a><\/p>\n

Abbe Advances<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Field school participants gained practice and experience by tracking down a radio-tagged 10-year-old box turtle.\u00c2\u00a0 As the signal vectored the team toward the general area of the tagged turtle, eager eyes scanned the woodlands and discovered the gentle critter hiding under some dropped branches.<\/p>\n

\"023<\/a><\/p>\n

Pat on Point<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

With the confidence gained by this tracking exercise, the team cut loose to find untagged turtles scattered around more than a 1000 acres of Mass Audubon’s Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0\"004<\/a><\/p>\n

Eureka! Bruce, Peter & Hans Examine Box Turtle<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As each Eastern box turtle was discovered, the team examined it to identify its gender and to assess its health.\u00c2\u00a0 They weighed and recorded its mass, an indicator of how well hydrated these animals\u00c2\u00a0had become\u00c2\u00a0in these\u00c2\u00a0perfect turtle conditions.\u00c2\u00a0 The team measured length and width of carapace (top shell) and plastron (bottom shell).\u00c2\u00a0 They documented all these data and GPS’d the turtle’s location to add to more than three decades of Eastern box turtle studies on the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MORE TURTLE FIELD SCHOOL STORIES\u00c2\u00a0TO FOLLOW<\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eastern Box Turtle in Paradise Humans may not appreciate sustained summer rains, but Eastern box turtles consider these conditions paradise.\u00c2\u00a0 Lots of moisture to keep hydrated while pursuing their most favored delicacy:\u00c2\u00a0 slugs!\u00c2\u00a0 Picture if you will that epic battle of speed and cunning … NOT between the tortoise and the hare, but between\u00c2\u00a0a lumbering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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\/9443"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9443"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9490,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9443\/revisions\/9490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}