Ouch! Even more terp injuries ...

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!

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!