Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Happy Turtle Day!

Can you spot the turtles in this picture?

Well, it seems like the terrapins living in the Lighthouse Center's canal knew it was their special day, and popped up for a visit/ bask! Thanks to Pola for this great picture!

Sure enough, it seems fitting that our first terrapin sighting of 2012 falls on World Turtle Day! Of course, every day is a reason to celebrate turtles, but here are five things you can keep in mind:

  • Never buy a turtle from a pet shop, as it increases demand from the wild.
  • Never remove turtles from the wild unless they are sick or injured. 
  • If a turtle is crossing a busy street, pick it up and send it in the same direction it was going — if you try to make it go back, it will turn right around again. 
  • Report cruelty or illegal sales of turtles to your local animal control shelter. 
  • Report the sale of any turtle of any kind less than four inches. This is illegal everywhere in the U.S.

These are recommendations from American Tortoise Rescue. Mother Nature Network also wrote a great story about world turtle day which you can find here. Our friend the diamondback terrapin even got a cameo in the article!

World Turtle Day or not, we're very excited to see that Barnegat Bay's terrapins are ready for summer to begin. Soon enough we'll be finding them on nesting beaches (which also means they'll be crossing roads, so drive safely!) and collecting them in our traps. We hope you can come out and join us for what is sure to be a great field season:0)

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Earthwatch Board Members Visit our Site!

October 20, 2011 was a red-letter day in our research at Barnegat Bay. We had 50 very special visitors come to the Lighthouse Center - The Earthwatch Institute's Executive Board! While many of them have worked behind the scenes to help fund, implement, organize, and support our expeditions, it was very exciting for these board members to see what it is really like to be a volunteer on our project. Some board members were from the main Earthwatch headquarters in Boston, while others traveled from as far as Japan, England, and Brazil for this meeting!

We split into two large groups, with half of the group going out on the R.V. Peter Kilham for a tour of the bay, and half of the group going out in small boats to check traps. In the afternoon, we switched. We really lucked out on weather, and although it was windy, the sun was shining like a day on the bay in August! Because it was so late in the fall, water temperatures are not ideal for terrapins to be swimming around much so we did not expect to catch many in our traps. Low and behold, not only did the board members find terrapins, we caught two NEW captures in our hoop nets - a record for that time of year! You can see in this picture how thrilled everyone was to catch their very first terrapin:
Overall, the visit was incredibly successful, even beyond catching terrapins. It was a wonderful opportunity for the board members to see how all of their hard work pays off for the Earthwath volunteer's experience. In addition, it was neat for us, as scientists, to learn more about the organization behind Earthwatch, and put names with faces. Since, we've felt much more connected to our funding org., and some incredible collaborations have flourished.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Injured Terrapins in Barnegat Bay

For the past six summers, Earthwatch volunteers have been essential members of our team. Without volunteers, we would not be capable of trapping and processing the hundreds of diamondback terrapins that we capture each year in the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge. One of the many important findings from our research is that we are catching more injured terrapins each year.

Typically, we go out in small motor boats in the morning to check or set turtle traps. We bring the captured terrapins back to our laboratory which we affectionately refer to as the Marine Station. In the Marine Station, we "process" the terrapins with the help of our Earthwatch volunteers. Basically, this means that we measure (mass and various shell lengths) and mark each individual terrapin with unique codes that allow us to recognize that specific terrapin in case we catch it again in the future. We also check each terrapin for the presence of new or healed injuries. We've been keeping a record of the presence and location of each injury for each individual terrapin since 2006. The most common injuries include missing limbs and shell damage to the carapace (top shell) or plastron (bottom shell). We also frequently capture terrapins with boat propeller injuries. These types of injuries are easy to identify due to the major damage to the carapace and plastron, and most times you can actually see a telltale slash mark through the terrapin.

The figure at the top of this post shows the frequency of major terrapin injury in the northern and the southern parts of the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge over the past six years. Only major injuries are included here, and major injuries were considered to be missing limbs or major damage to the shell, head, or tail. When the Earthwatch project started in 2006, only 13% of the terrapins we captured had major injuries. However, we found that 23 to 24% of the terrapins captured this past summer had major injuries.

Terrapins can obtain injuries from natural and anthropogenic sources. Missing limbs are oftentimes attributed to land predators such as raccoons. Major shell damage tends to be due to anthropogenic (human-generated) impacts such as boat propellers or automobiles. There's not too much that we can do about natural causes of injuries; however, there are some steps we could take to decrease human-caused injuries. Partial or complete closures of some wildlife areas to boating may be necessary to protect terrapins from boat strike injuries. Boating speed limits could also be helpful, especially in sensitive areas such as near nesting beaches. In order to lessen the impact of human-generated injuries on the terrapin population in Barnegat Bay, we need to keep collecting data on terrapins and injury rates. If you want to help save the terrapins, please consider signing up for one of our Earthwatch expeditions. Earthwatch volunteers truly are indispensable members of our research team on the conservation of diamondback terrapins in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey.