Diamondback Terrapins in Barnegat Bay, NJ

2012 Upcoming Events

2011-11-26T22:43:00.002-05:00

The new year will bring some new opportunities for our terrapin volunteers and those that wish to supprt Project Terrapin. Here are some plans for the winter and spring 2012..

Production of terrapin nest covers
Production of metal BRDs
Building of a new hatchery at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts & Sciences

On the schedule..

February 29, 2012 - Family Fun Night at MATES 6:30 p.m. (Turtle Fun and Fundraiser)
April 7, 2012 - Presentation at the LBI Foundation on local turtles at 1:00 p.m.
May 2012 - LBI Project Terrapin Training TBD

Please contact projectterrapin@gmail.com for any inquiries.

2011 New Jersey Society for the Conservation of Diamondback Terrapins

2011-10-11T22:00:00.005-04:00

This year, the NJ Society for the Conservation of Diamondback Terrapins recognized Mrs. Dottie Reynolds for her outstanding contribution to the protection of terrapins on Long Beach Island. Dottie lives in an area with a high terrapin nest density, and she assists with females crossing the roadway, keeping them and their future hatchlings out of harms way. Dottie has worked on the LBI terrapin project for the past two years, and is a tremendous supporter of terrapin conservation. When you think about terrapin conservation, you definitely mention Dottie Reynolds in that conversation, every time. Congratulations Dottie and thanks for being so dedicated.

Terrapins in the Shark River? Still unknown

2011-07-22T22:16:00.004-04:00

There has been some discussion over the possibility of diamondback terrapins living in the Shark River. Shark River is located in Monmouth County, NJ; it is a relatively small and shallow estuarine basin with no data to support the presence of terrapins. This summer (July 2011), the Marine Academy of Technology & Environmental Science (MATES), Drexel University, and interns with Monmouth University's Urban Coast Institute will pilot a mark and recapture study to hopefully answer this question. We will be working the weeks of July 4, July 18, and July 25 to capture diamondback terrapins.

The first week of trapping was on the south branch of the Shark River basin. The tidal range is great with traps sitting well, then beached during low tide. We caught a large snapping turtle (pictured) close to Brighton Road on July 7. We will resume trapping on July 18 in the north where there is more promising terrapin habitat than in the southern branch.

The second trapping session produced no terrapins during week one (July 17), but we are now concentrating efforts in Shark River Hills off S. Riverside and East End Avenues. After a second full week of trapping, we failed to capture any terrapins in Musquash Cove. Here is what we can report for this project:
1. Not a single terrapin was spotted basking anywhere along the banks of the masrhes
2. Not a single sign of nesting or even predation on nests was observed
3. Not a single terrapin was spotted in the water (which is not the case at Island Beach where we see them frequently)
4. Although trappins produced a snapping turtle, no terrapins were captured using baited hoop traps (in 360 hours of trapping). Compared to Island Beach with 30 terrapins caught in 360 hours).

Therefore, we cannot say "terrapins are not in the Shark River:, however, if terrapins are present, it would be a small population to say the least. Thanks to the Monmouth University students who were dedicated and did an outstanding job this summer!

2011 LBI Nesting Update

2011-07-21T22:10:00.009-04:00

Thanks to the many volunteers that attended our LBI Nest Watch 2011 Program on Sunday May 22. This is part of a nest relocation program scheduled for Long Beach Island at the Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts and Sciences (LBIF). The Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science (MATES), Drexel University, and LBIF are conducting a project to identify nests, mark nests, and move nests that may be in areas with a high possibility of human disturbance. Nests that need to be relocated, will be moved to a hatchery at the LBIF in Loveladies, NJ. There will be an additional volunteer training session once terrapin nesting is underway! Thanks Marc and Jane for their work on June 2. Nicole M. moved a nest from a construction area to the LBIF on June 4. On June 6, Marc and Jane moves two nests and found one nest with 20 eggs in a clutch! This is the new high mark for Barnegat Bay. Today, June 9, another nest was moved to the Foundation. John is helping a female terrapin hit by a car on June 7 and rescued by Dave. Thanks Dave! Stay tuned for the predator project on High Bar Harbor with Kathy!

June 18 was a busy day, the High Bar Harbor Tax Payers Association heard from me and Kathy about the LBIF Project and the threat of raccoon predators. Marc and Jane have been doing a great job in relocating nests and working with Dottie in Barnegat Light. There are eleven nests in the hatcheries at LBIF as of June 18.
As of June 24, there are 15 nests at the LBIF hatchery. On June 24, we marked 8 females that nested at High Bar Harbor, Barnegat Light, and North Beach. Thanks to Jane and Marc for their tireless efforts in Barnegat Light, and look for Kathy's terrapin nest predator prevention project at High Bar Harbor.
Next on the schedule is our hatchling watch at the Foundation and recovery of emerged terrapins for release back to the wild. Contact John if you would like to survey the hatchery at the LBIF to check for emerged hatchlings. Nest #1 and Nest #5had hatchlings on August 9 and 10! Nest #14 produced hatchlings on Friday August 11 and Sarah called to report more on August 13. We've had over 64 hatchlings as per August 20, 2011. We excavated several nests on August 25, 2011 in preparation of Hurricane Irene. Of five nests, we were able to rescue 14 hatchlings. Nests #30 and #31 contained eggs that looked good. All other nests were assessed and hatchlings removed at the LBIF. We had a volunteer recognition ceremony on October 11 at the MATES school (see photo above) and we thanked our tremendous volunteers for their time and dedication to the conservation of terrapins!
Contact Dr. John Wnek for more information (projectterrapin@gmail.com).

Check out the LBI Foundation of the Arts and Sciences Science Website http://www.lbifscience.org/ProjectTerrapin.htm

Terrapin Outreach and Education

2011-06-05T21:00:00.008-04:00

The 14th Annual Barnegat Bay Festival was very well attended on June 5, 2011. Over 60 BRD (Bycatch Reduction Device) sets were distributed and 100's of people learned about terrapins, conservation and how they could protect this species. Thanks to the Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science's Project Terrapin, students volunteered hundreds of hours this year to promote terrapin conservation. To date, we've distributed over 2500 sets of BRDs with plans for 1000 more!
The Long Beach Island Foundation's Barnegat Bay Day on Thursday July 7 was a huge success. We conducted terrapin conservation programs and even had a friendly competition showcasing our captive terrapins (those in captivity that we care for). Thanks to Josette, Brian, Patrick and Jackie, and of course, Professor LaBella!

The US Coast Guard Community Day was a great place for us to show LBI their newest hatchlings from nests #8 and #9. We brought 18 hatchlings with us and showed them how we notch code the hatchlings (AL) for this year. Our next Outreach event is at the Beach Plum Festival at Island Beach State Park on Sunday September 11.

The 2011 Barnegat Bay Nesting Season

2011-05-31T21:46:00.018-04:00

On May 31, there were multiple reports of terrapins nesting at Barnegat Bay, New Jersey. Four marked adult female terrapins were captured on North Sedge Island and three of them dug nests. At Long Beach Island, two female terrapins nested. At LBI, we were not able to identify the nesting. The first days of June, we had ten female terrapins captured and six identified nests. On June 4, Nicole M. moved a nest from Cedar Bonnet Island to the LBIF hatchery and marked a female at LBIF! This week, June 5, Jane and Marc volunteered much time at Barnegat Light. They found a nest with a clutch size of 20 eggs!
At Sedge on June 10, it was the annual "terrapin arribada" with 23 females coming ashore. Five nests were moved and 17 females came up after 12 noon! It was a busy day. The previous night, it seems that the mink returned to the Island and destroyed all reference nests outside of the hatchery. Five known nests were predated. After Jules used her night vision camera, it was determined that a raccoon has inhabited the Island and is wreaking havoc on terrapin nests, and other wildlife on the Sedge. We will be humanely trapping the raccoon the week of June 20.
There has been no success trappin the raccoon this part week; however, nesting picked up on Sedge with 12 terrapins making landfall on June 23 and June 24. There are a total of 33 nests on the Island this year so far. On June 25, we had two terrapin nests on Sedge Island with 20 eggs each! This is new record. Terrapin AHPW produced 20 eggs on June 24. Terrapin AJKQW produced 20 eggs on June 25!
On July 3, the nesting season is coming to a close but we will still see some terrapins coming up from time to time for the next two weeks. Thanks to our fantasic volunteers.

On July 8, AHPW came back to dig her third nest of the season. She deposited 16 eggs! Way to go AHPW - one of originally marked terrapins from 2002! Next up will be our hatchling recovery program! On July 21, we assessed an early nest that has eggs that are incubating well. Our first nest produced emerged hatchlings at Sedge on August 10, 2011 with nests 1 and 2 producing hatchlings on consecutive days. We had two more nests with full incubation and emergence at Sedge. On August 20, nests 12 and 23 produced a total of 29 hatchlings out of a 29 eggs. On August 24, we completed a hatchery assessment with all nests in the 10's and 20's. Overall, we recovered over 70 hatchlings. Sadly, on August 31, we assessed the hatchery on N. Sedge Island and Hurricane Irene claimed the remaining nests. Washover from the storm knocked over the protection cages. It seems that some of the hatchlings were able to emerge; however, it seems that some predators were able to access the hatchery when the water was high (i.e., mink).

Horseshoe Crab Poaching

2011-05-25T14:54:00.000-04:00

Although most of our research is focused on diamondback terrapins, we try to never lose sight of the fact that by helping the terrapins hopefully we are also conserving the other organisms in the bay. Horseshoe crabs just so happen to be one of my favorite creatures in Barnegat Bay (other than terrapins, of course!). We commonly catch horseshoe crabs in our fyke nets when we're trapping terrapins. We've also found horseshoe crab hatchlings on Conklin Beach which is one of our terrapin nesting sites. These crabs are commonly referred to as living fossils because they have changed very little in the past 250 million years. Horseshoe crab populations are dwindling due to the high numbers of crabs that are harvested for bait and fertilization. Luckily, in 2008, the state of New Jersey banned the harvest of horseshoe crabs. Unfortunately, some people still try to harvest horseshoe crabs even though there are regulations forbidding this practice. Three individuals were just caught in Ocean City, NJ on Monday poaching horseshoe crabs. Thank goodness someone called the police!

Ouch! Even more terp injuries ...

2011-05-05T14:52:00.000-04:00

Over the past five summers (2006 to 2010), we've captured over 2,000 terrapins in the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge. Of those turtles, 17.4% have scars or open wounds from past or present injuries. Many of these injuries were caused by predators or by anthropogenic sources such as automobiles or boat propellers. I've always been interested in boat injuries considering that most of my research is based on the effects of recreational boat sounds on terrapin behavior. Of the injured terrapins we've captured in Forsythe, 18.9% of those injuries were attributed to boat propellers. It's pretty easy to tell if an injury was caused by boat strike because there is a slash mark in the terrapin's shell from the propeller. Typically, these injuries cause major damage in both the carapace (top shell) and plastron (bottom shell).

I apologize for the graphic photos, but this is yet another example of why the terrapins in Barnegat Bay need your help. Sign up for an expedition to help save the terps this summer!

Abby's visual ecology research

2011-04-28T16:07:00.002-04:00

Hello terrapin enthusiasts!

Wow, so much has happened this year, I don't even know where to start!

First of all, the Drexel terrapin crew went to Chauvin, LA in November to present our research findings at the diamondback terrapin working group symposium on the ecology, status, and conservation of the diamondback terrapin. We learned a great deal about other kinds of studies being conducted on the terrapin; most of all though, we learned how much we still don't know about the terrapin, and more research is necessary to gain a greater understanding.

Over the Summer of 2010 I collected over 500 reflectance spectra from more than 60 individual terrapins. From these data I have been able to compare coloration within and among individuals, as well as model the visual system of the terrapin. From these analyses and from previous research on turtle vision, I speculate that terrapins have tetrachormatic vision (UV, blue, green, red), and communicate across all color channels, especially in the UV. Intra- and inter-specific signaling in the UV has been documented in flower-pollinator relationships as well as a signal communicating fitness to potential mates (e.g. birds, jumping spiders, ocellated lizards).

In addition to the vision modeling, I have processed most of my blood and tissue samples. I hope to finish these up and send them out for genotyping so I can correlate possible differences in reproductive success with differences in phenotype (coloration). If UV patterning or coloration is a signal of fitness in the terrapin, then I may find that terrapins with a brighter UV signal may have higher reproductive success.

On top of all this, last March I completed my written candidacy exam, and on April 12 completed my oral exam to become a PhD candidate! Now that I am a candidate, the work has really started!

This Summer I hope to gather more reflectance spectra data, blood samples and hatchling tissue samples for genotyping, as well as design a system for measuring in situ underwater irradiance. But the only way this can be done is if you sign up to become an Earthwatch volunteer! Not only will you help me collect data to elucidate the visual ecology of the terrapin, you will get to join one of the research staff everyday to collect, track, and release terrapins. Some weeks we collect almost 100 terrapins! That's a lot of processing...so come sign up and help us out!

What are those orange things doing on the beach?

2011-04-28T15:17:00.009-04:00

Well, they certainly do look weird - I can't really blame you for asking.
Believe it or not, they are actually being used for our terrapin research! This past summer I lined two historic nesting beaches in Barnegat with these orange construction barriers (a very kind donation from Yodock Inc.), as a form of modeled bulkheading. This is what bulkheading normally looks like in Barnegat Bay:
It's used to prevent properties' (such as this nice home on Long Beach Island) foundations from eroding away.
So, as a turtle, if this suddenly showed up on your nesting beach, what would you do?
That is my research question! And, it is a very important question to ask considering the incredibly high rate of human development occurring in Barnegat. I'm interested in seeing how much these bulkheads will displace nesting terrapins, and what behaviors they exhibit in relation to them.
Before putting the barriers in place this past summer, I wasn't sure if turtles would simply walk around the 'bulkheading' or drop their eggs in the water and run! In fact, I found that the terrapins exhibited a very high level of fidelity to the bulkheaded nesting beaches - simply walking around the barriers instead of switching sites.
Some turtles walked almost SIX TIMES further on land to nest on the bulkheaded beach. This could be a problem for these females in the long run b/c that means they are on beaches for longer periods of time, increasing their predation risk and energy allocation!
While they spend more time on land, females are spending an equal amount of time in the water "checking out" the beach before emerging to nest regardless of the barriers. This is interesting because I expected the turtles to spend more time looking at those big orange things before risking exposure to nest, wouldn't you?
How do I know where the turtles are on land and in the water?
Great question! This turtle shows off the telemetry equipment I use to track nesting turtles. The orange transmitter on the top of her shell sends transmissions through the air when she's on land, and the white transmitter on the back of her shell sends signals through the water. Then, I know not only if the turtle is on the beach nesting or outside the beach checking things out, but also exactly where she is on land or in the water.

I plan to replicate my 2010 experiment this coming summer, so if you are interested sign up for a Earthwatch team and come try your hand at turtle nesting surveys yourself! In the mean time, I'll keep you posted...

Homing Behavior and Homeward Orientation Study

2011-04-25T23:27:00.001-04:00

Last summer, the Earthwatch volunteers helped me track terrapins to determine whether they display homing behavior, using radio and sonic telemetry. Eight out of the nine terrapins that we tracked all returned home successfully! Sadly, one was recaptured in a crab pot. We also placed terrapins inside a 16-square meter terrestrial arena to determine if they had homeward orientation (placing terrapins inside the arena at night was the most fun). We were able to run 181 terrapins in the arena throughout the summer and have some interesting results... females tend to have a mean homeward direction while males did not. Females may be interested in locating home for nesting locations. This summer, we are going to run more terrapins in the arena and need volunteers to help. If you are interested in seeing some more of my results, a poster I recently made for a symposium is here (click on the link, then go to the file menu of google docs to download the original full version of the poster).

-Nicole

Need summer plans? Join us to save the terps!

2011-04-20T11:28:00.001-04:00

Well, it's that time of year again when we start planning for field season! Our first Earthwatch expedition starts on June 12, 2011 and there are a few volunteer spots still available. Check out the links to the right if you're interested in joining us!

For prosperity's sake, here's a snapshot of our staff from last summer. As far as I know, Dr. Avery, Dr. Standora, Dr. Wnek, Jules, Abby, Nicole, Brian, Chris, and I will still be around this summer and we'll be joined by a few new faces.

One of the most common questions that I'm asked is "what do you guys do all winter when you're not in the field"? Well, we certainly stay busy! As anyone who has done an expedition with us knows, we work from dawn to dusk trapping turtles and running experiments during the summer months. The winter months are incredibly important to us because they give us a chance to analyze our data from the summer, write papers, plan new experiments, teach biology/environmental science classes, give presentations on our research, etc., etc., etc. For example, earlier this month, Jules, Abby, and I presented our terrapin research at Drexel University's Research Day and College of Arts and Sciences' Research Day.

Stay tuned to hear more about our research in the next few days!

Terrapin Hatchling Update

2011-04-19T22:00:00.005-04:00

In 2010, we retrieved over 60 terrapin hatchlings from North Sedge Island as part of a head-start program. Since that time, six schools raised hatchlings including: Girard Middle School (PA); Lacey Middle School (NJ); Scotch Plains Elementary School (NJ); Southern Regional High School (NJ); Stafford Intermediate School (NJ) and Paterson Elementary School (NJ). We have released headstarted terrapins back to the Sedge Island Marine Conservation Zone throughout May 2011. Thanks to the students and their teachers for making this a tremendous learning experience!

Congratulations, Dr. Emily Basile!

2010-05-26T21:09:00.000-04:00

As you can probably guess from the title of this post, Emily Basile received her Ph.D. today! At 1PM this afternoon, she presented her dissertation, "Persistent Organic Pollutants in Diamondback Terrapin Tissues, Eggs, and Sediments in Barnegat Bay, New Jersey", to the public. Around 2PM, Emily defended her dissertation to her committee. Then at 3PM, Dr. Emily joined the Avery lab, the ecology lab, and the Department of Biology at a party in her honor.

Next week, John Wnek will be defending his dissertation and hopefully earning the title of "Dr.". Don't worry ... I'll keep you updated on his progress!

In other news, Jules, Abby, and I are all in the process of getting ready for field season. Jules has been keeping herself busy trying to determine how she can walk two different beaches for eight hours a day watching for nesting terrapins (hmm ... sounds like she may need some help from Earthwatch volunteers). Abby just got a spectrophotometer so that she can analyze the different color wavelengths of the terrapins for her morphology study this summer. And I have my fingers crossed that this will be my last field season. I still need to expose a whole bunch of terrapins (53 to be exact) to boat engine sounds and I need to make some ambient sound recordings in the bay.

We're going to start unpacking the camp on June 7 and then the first Earthwatch team will join us on June 13. Bring it on, field season ... we're ready to catch some terrapins!

Jules Winters, PhD Candidate

2010-05-10T23:04:00.000-04:00

When a student is working towards a PhD, there's one moment that tends to evoke more fear than any other ... the candidacy exam. The candidacy exam at Drexel consists of two parts: a week long written exam and a 3-4 hour oral exam. During the oral exam, the student needs to defend the answers to their written exam and also present/defend their dissertation proposal. Typically, a PhD student attempts to complete their candidacy exam at the end of their second year of study. In exciting news, Jules just passed her candidacy exam on May 5. Since it was also Cinco de Mayo, a bunch of us ecology nerds went out to celebrate Jules' achievement following her exam.

From left to right: Pat (frogs in Bioko Island), Samir (loggerhead sea turtles in Greece), Jen (Samir's fiancee), Jules (PhD Candidate extraordinaire), Me, Steve (freshwater turtles in southeastern PA), Maggie (red colobus in Bioko Island), and Jack (loggerhead sea turtles in Greece).

As far as what this means for the terrapin project in Barnegat Bay, this summer Jules will start collecting "real" data, i.e., the data that she will eventually use to write her dissertation. My understanding is that she'll be looking at terrapin nesting in response to anthropogenic (human-caused) changes in the bay such as bulkheading.

Gulf Coast Oil Spill Threatens Terrapins

2010-05-04T12:03:00.000-04:00

By now, everyone has probably heard about the oil spill that occurred off the coast of Louisiana on April 20, 2010. My understanding is that there was an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig which resulted in a massive oil spill. Yesterday, the estimate was that the spill covers a surface area of more than 2,500 square miles. Oil is leaking from the oil well at the rate of 5 to 25 thousand barrels per day. By April 30, the oil had already begun to appear at wildlife refuges on Louisiana's coast. Many species are at risk including shrimp, fish, marine mammals, shore birds, and unfortunately ... even terrapins.

For more information on the oil spill and gulf coast terrapins, check out this link!

Oil Spill Threatens Terrapins

Congratulations Dr. Claire!!!

2010-05-03T11:05:00.000-04:00

I'm proud to announce that Claire Sheridan (Coleman) successfully defended her dissertation on April 8, 2010. Congrats, Dr. Claire! Since Dr. Avery's graduate students are rarely all in the same location at the same time, we took the opportunity to pose for a lab photo (From left: John, Abby, Steven, Me, Emily, Jules, Dr. Claire, and Dr. Avery).

Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head!

2010-03-28T12:44:00.001-04:00

The Lighthouse Center in Waretown, NJ has recently been hit with several substantial rainstorms. During the most recent storm, there was quite a bit of flooding and a tree actually toppled over on to the roof of the dining hall! The fearless groundskeeper, Pola Galie, snapped a few pictures of the damage. Although our summer home may not be in perfect condition right now, I have no doubt we will be back in business by mid-June and completely ready for our first Earthwatch team!

We say 'hey!' to a frozen Barnegat Bay

2010-01-20T19:33:00.008-05:00

As we turned the corner on Bayshore Drive last Thursday, my ears began to ring after hearing Lori say: "Are those birds STANDING on the water?" Sure enough, a 1.5 hour drive, 45 min of packing, and 5 min of trailering the Lowe boat after leaving Drexel, Claire, Lori and I had arrived at the boat dock greeted by a frozen Barnegat Bay.

The intended mission? We journeyed to B-gat for a data download from my underwater sonic receivers which are currently logging movement data from three overwintering terrapins in Arnold's Pond. It's important to check these receivers to ensure that they are not damaged from the weather or boating activity, and also so the memory is not overloaded (they can hold up to 100,000 data points)!

While upset that our initial quest would have to be postponed, the three of us were still excited to see the bay in this condition. As ecologists, it is fascinating to observe our focus ecosystem in such a dynamic state from that which we are used to experiencing in June! We stayed for a bit at the dock to measure temperature and salinity at various depths with the YSI (below). The temperatures ranged from 1.2C at the surface to 0.7C about half a meter deep! Also, it was convenient that we had the stick pole (about 8ft long, used to stabilize the boat while downloading data normally) to poke at the ice from the dock, to see how thick it really was.

It seems like ice would be an obvious deterrent to our mission, and probably something we should have considered before venturing to Barnegat with a boat. However, my personal communication with locals varies in how 'normal' it is for the bay to freeze. Prior to leaving my receivers out over the winter, many people swore that the bay 'never' freezes. A local at the dock last week said that he didn't remember this ever happening, for instance. Since asking around more, I have heard from some locals that the bay always freezes at least in part, but never in entirety. This makes more sense, as you can see above, that not all of the bay was completely frozen...only where we needed to go with the boat, unfortunately.

Overall, returning to Barnegat in the winter turned into an incredibly informative venture for the three of us. Don't worry, the terrapins are fine - as reptiles, they can adjust very well to temperature changes! Next time, us humans will just have to check the weather first!

Does a turtle by any other name smell so... sweet?

2009-08-17T09:38:00.005-04:00

What a productive week we've had at Terrapin Station! Team 5 has really shown us their stuff, and we're very sorry to see them go today:(

This group has been able to apply their turtle knowledge to lots of other species in the herpetology field:

To begin, before the team even had a chance to capture a terrapin, they caught a box turtle without even trying last Monday! A female box turtle had walked into one of our crab pots - on land! Another experience came when one volunteer chose to bushwhack through Warren Grove with Co-PI, Dr. Walt Bien. Sure enough, when you're with Walt you're in for some serious herping! Volunteer Amanda was in it to help with their Lepidoptera research, but sure enough they came across a timber rattle snake in the process! She had lots of stories about holding the snake with tongs while it was threateningly rattleing at her!

To continue the herpetology adventure this week, Dr. Jim Spotila lead the volunteers through a box turtle next excavation! The box turtle was observed nesting on June 8 when Jim and other leading sea turtle researchers were at the field station for a conference. As you can see in the picture, the volunteers really enjoyed 'candle-lighting' the eggs to look for signs of the baby box turtles.

Last but not least, our volunteers were very surprised to find an incredibly large, 30 lb terrapin in a fyke net yesterday. Wait, that doesn't sound right... it was a SNAPPING TURTLE!!!! Normally, snappers and terrapins don't share habitats, snapping turtles being fresh water inhabitants, and terrapins prefering brackish water. For this reason, we've never caught a snapping turtle in one of our traps in Forsythe National Refuge before. This large male was not happy to be in the trap, and it was almost impossible to get him out without someone having the guts to put their hands in the net at the risk of losing some fingers... Luckily, fellow Avery lab graduate student, Steven Pearson, was in town for the day and being a fresh water turtle ecologist he was more than happy to pull the turtle out of the trap for us. A few claw scratches later, Steve had the snapper contained on the marshland for us to observe. In the picture you'll see Lori holding our proud capture - she'll voutch that it was one heavy turtle!

Don't worry - we're not switching our study species anytime soon! This week we had lots of terrapins in the lab for our volunteers to work with too. Would you believe that we caught 53 terrapins this week?! Woo-hoo!

Have you seen the environmental data loggers???

2009-08-14T13:34:00.003-04:00

We're currently in the middle of Team 5 and it's been an EXTREMELY busy week. Dr. Avery is out of town for vacation and thus Dr. Jim Spotila has been our fearless leader (although he's been spending most of his time writing his new book, "Saving Sea Turtles"). We started the week out with a broken boat, a broken trailer, and a broken freezer. Shortly thereafter, we found that most of our environmental sensors that were placed throughout the bay had gone missing (i.e., they were stolen). Although initially upsetting, Jules, Abby, Andy, and Brianna were quick to volunteer to help me build a new floating board to hold more sensors. In the photo above, you can see Andy, Abby, and Brianna busily working on the new board (with my brand new drill that Jim bought me!). A temperature/light sensor will be placed on one side of the board and then two ibuttons will be suspended from the board into the water column to collect water temperature data. The sensors are programmed to collect one data point every 15 minutes so we should be back in action soon.

Bye Team 4!!!

2009-08-04T16:42:00.006-04:00

Team 4 (aka Teen Team 2, check out the pic on the right!) left us last Monday after a great nine days together. Turtle trapping was a bit low. On the best day, we caught 17 turtles and on the worst day ... 0. Unfortunately, the off week hasn't been any better. I'm pretty sure that we haven't broken the 10 turtle mark since the volunteers left. Plus it's been a rainy week. We didn't even get out on the water for one day due to thunderstorms.

Team 5 arrived yesterday. We now have eight volunteers who range in age from 18 to 54. They have traveled from as close as northern NJ to as far as Australia. We pulled all of the traps out of the water over the weekend and the new volunteers are currently placing traps in Collins Pond and Cable Creek. Here's hoping we catch lots of turtles!

A chop from the prop

2009-07-31T17:37:00.004-04:00

Last week during trapping, the team at Terrapin Station noticed a startling pattern. Over three consecutive days, three large female terrapins were captured with major shell damage. All were caught in Gunning River, one of our southern-most sites. Here, we have witnessed jetskis and other personal watercrafts zip through the narrow channels on many occasions. We can't say that the number of speedsters is greater than in other BBay terrapin habitats, but this sampling of turtles may help suggest it to be so...

The first lady captured had the most severe injuries. Picture 1 above shows her severed front limbs, and major scarring on the plastron near these areas. She's lucky to be alive! The correlation of scarring and limb damage in the same areas is obvious prop damage, versus predation.
The second terrapin (not pictured) had a large puncture scar on her carapace. With the exception of a boat propeller, there is nothing strong, sharp, or fast enough to have caused such an injury in Barnegat Bay.
The third terrapin and her injuries can be seen in picture 2 and 3. The area of her carapace above her left forelimb was so completely cut that it was actually wiggling! As you can see in picture 3, she was quickly mended thanks to some fast drying epoxy (recommended for concrete, stone, wood, glass or metal).

It is important to post these pictures, not so that you feel sorry for the terrapins, but more so to promote awareness of the impact boating may cause the natural inhabitants of our waterways. Observations such as these are a harsh reminder of how important research like Lori and Andy's (involving the impacts of anthropogenic sound on terrapins) is to promoting responsible management of the areas shared by humans and turtles, alike.

2009-07-29T08:30:00.002-04:00

We're now in the middle of Team 4! We have seven teens and one teen coordinator all here at the Lighthouse Center helping us out. Today, Hal and Lori P. are taking out groups of volunteers on the boats to do some turtle trapping. Andy and Rachel are out on the water doing the last of Andy's boat trials. Yay Andy! I was left behind to do some data analysis, but somehow it seemed like more fun to blog.

I also wanted to show everyone the article that appeared in the Buffalo News recently. Check it out for more info on Andy's study!

Asbury Park Press

2009-07-25T15:53:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, we had a visit from a reporter and a photographer from the Asbury Park Press. They stopped by the Lighthouse Center early in the morning and Andy and I discussed our sound/boat research with them. After that, the reporters joined Hal and John for a short boat trip to the bay. They visited a fyke (surprise, surprise ... there was a turtle in it!) and then went over to John's study site. An article was in the newspaper today about the Earthwatch project (Click here to see the article!) and there will be another article in the near future on John's "Project Terrapin". Good article, fun experience, and always great to get info about the turtles out there ... but there are a few scientific inaccuracies in the text. Can you find any???

Photo album

Terrapins can hear!

2009-07-18T21:27:00.009-04:00

Today was my third day at the Marine Biological Lab in Woods Hole, MA. I've completed hearing tests on three of the five terrapins that I brought with me and I'm proud to report that terrapins can hear (although not very well!). In the photo, you can see a female terrapin that has an electrode in her ear and an electrode in her midline (i.e., brain). The brass object is an earphone that is fitted to the turtle's ear. The basic idea is that a sound is played through the earphone to the turtle and then the electrodes collect information regarding the auditory nerve's reaction to the sound. I know that everyone has been losing sleep over not knowing whether terrapins can hear. So go ahead and rest easy tonight. (:

I also had the opportunity to perform CT head scans at Woods Hole Oceanography Institue (WHOI) on two of my terrapins (a male and a female). These scans allowed us to take a closer look at the structure of the terrapin ear. Pretty cool stuff!

Other than that, I will admit that I'm missing Barnegat Bay. Hopefully, I'll be able to head back to the field station within the next few days. In the meantime, I have a weird feeling that things are going very well in NJ and that they've caught 48395 turtles since I left!

Here jet ski, jet ski, jet ski!!!

2009-07-14T13:37:00.002-04:00

It's the beginning of another crazy expedition here in Terrapin Station, NJ. This time around we have seven teenage volunteers and one teen coordinator. So far, we've only captured six turtles total but I'm pretty convinced that things will improve in the near future. Claire has been taking some volunteers to Spizzle each day to trap turtles. No Spizzle turtles yet, but hopefully we'll have some soon.

Jules is still searching for her turtle. We checked the Lighthouse Center traps today and found one decent size female; however, still no sign of the bionic turtle.

Other than that, I gave a presentation to a group of 4th to 8th graders from the organization "Operation Military Family" on Saturday night. I was surprisingly nervous since I've never worked with that age group before. It went really well though. I think they all enjoyed seeing the turtles and learning all about what they can do to help conserve the bay.

On Sunday, Chris and I made some underwater recordings of a jet ski. We basically set up all my sound equipment and then waited for an hour until we were able to flag down a jet skier. He was very willing to help and we now have some pretty awesome recordings of a jet ski.

Tomorrow I'm heading up to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution to do some hearing tests on terrapins. So excited!

2009-07-10T16:07:00.004-04:00

Have you seen this terrapin???

She should be easy to pick out of a crowd with the various transmitters on her back! On the top of her carapace you'll see a radio transmitter, which sends signals for reception in the air (when the she's catching a breath at the surface or basking on land). At the back, by her tail is a sonic transmitter, whose signal can be heard through the brackish water with our Dukane underwater receiver.

These transmitters were placed on terrapin BCOPX, my first 'bionic' turtle, on June 17th after she was found crossing the trail at our field station. As a gravid (egg-bearing) female, this was the perfect opportunity for me to begin my preliminary research regarding the movement and nesting behaviors of terrapins in Barnegat Bay. What better place to monitor this turtle than in our own field station canal?

After being released, I have been monitoring BCOPX's movement using Submersible Underwater Receivers (SUR, Sonotronics Inc.) which remotely log data regarding her time and place thanks to the sonic transmitter on her back. This information will be useful in my study as I determine if these SUR units are valid indicators of the nesting behavior of gravid females.

However, the last step of the process has proven to be a difficult one. Recently, I've attempted various methods towards re-capture of BCOPX. Currently I have a 6-element radio receiver set up, which will receive her radio signal up to a mile away. Also, I've set hoop-net traps in the canal near where she was released, hoping she swims in. Yesterday we caught a female terrapin about her size in the nets, so I'm optimistic that BCOPX may be caught soon also!

I'll keep you posted, but in the meantime keep your eyes peeled!

2009-07-09T09:33:00.002-04:00

Apparently, 78 diamondback terrapins caused quite a stir at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday. Check out the article through the link below!

JFK Terrapins

2009-07-07T23:55:00.002-04:00

We just finished Team 2 yesterday and they were a wonderful team! Although small both in number and size (there were only three of them and none of them could beat my modest height of 5'4"), they managed to set fyke nets and process turtles like pros. They will be missed! During the "off" week, we're planning on trapping more turtles, making some boat recordings, and finding Jules' elusive Lighthouse Center terrapin. Wish us luck!

Bottom (from left): Jules, Me, Jen
Middle: Lori P., Abby, Hannah, Chris, Rachel, Sharon
Top: Andy, John

2009-07-03T09:27:00.006-04:00

Welcome to Terrapin Station, NJ! Basically, we're a bunch of students (Ph.D., Master degree, college, and high school) studying a population of diamondback terrapins in Barnegat Bay, NJ. Terrapins are considered a "species of special concern" in the state of NJ which pretty much means that they're not considered endangered yet but they could be in the near future. With the help of our fearless leader, Dr. Hal Avery, and many Earthwatch volunteers (http://www.earthwatch.org/exped/avery.html), we participate in an ongoing mark-recapture study where we trap terrapins in nets, mark the turtles so we can recognize individuals, and release them back into the bay. This will eventually allow us to estimate the size of the population and thus know whether the population is declining.

In addition to the population study, we work on a bunch of independent research projects. I'll let the rest of the staff introduce themselves and their projects to you in the near future. As for me, I'm a second year Ph.D. candidate at Drexel University in Philadelphia. For my dissertation, I'm studying the hearing ability of terrapins and the effects of human-created sounds (especially noise from boat engines) on turtle behavior. Can terrapins hear? How much anthropogenic sound is present in the bay? Does this sound lead to changes in terrapin behavior? These are just a few of the questions that I'm interested in answering. More to come soon!