Turtle Symposium

On Saturday I attended the Turtle Symposium which was organized by Millers River Educational Center. The symposium was held at UMass Amherst and actually was a two day event. Unfortunately I could only attend the second day.

The conference consisted of several presenters who spoke about the turtles of Massachusetts and related subjects. The morning presentations were mostly about the different species of turtles and the afternoon was devoted to conservation efforts. There was too much information for me to write about everything, but here are some interesting points:

Alison Whitlock of the US Fish and Wildlife Service spoke about the Bog Turtle. This is the smallest turtle in MA. It is limited to only three sites, all in the Western part of the commonwealth. Alison estimates the total population at 100 animals.

Don Lewis and Barbara Brennessel spoke about the Diamondback Terrapin. This turtle lives in salt water estuaries all along the east coast. In New England there are populations in Buzzards Bay, Wellfleet Bay, and Barrington, RI. The Wellfleet Bay population congregates in Middle Bay to mate before dispersing at the beginning of May. This turtle species is doing well enough that it is still commercially harvested. But, the numbers taken were a relative mystery. But, last year Maryland instituted mandatory reporting of each terrapin caught. To their surprise over 10,000 were killed in 2006 alone.

Bob Prescott of Wellfleet Bay MAS presented a talk on the sea turtles of MA. He spoke about the different species and why they strand in Cape Cod Bay. The sanctuary has an active program that monitors the beaches in the winter in hopes of finding "cold stunned" turtles. Bob also spoke about the wind farm. He thinks that this will be a benefit to the turtles since each turbine will need to be anchored to the sea bed on a cement platform. The platforms will promote the growth of artificial reefs which will attract food for the turtles. The best thing about this talk was that Bob showed pictures of the mouths of Leatherback Turtles. I never knew that their mouths were lined with spines (scroll down the pictures on this link to see what the spines look like). Apparently this helps them swallow their favorite prey, jellyfish.

Sarah Bean of the New England Aquarium gave a talk that complemented Bob's. She spoke about how the "cold stunned" turtles are rehabilitated at the aquarium. Sarah estimated that 20% of the turtles that the aquarium receives die in the first day. An additional 5-10% die in the next week or two due to complications. That means that the partnership (Mass Audubon and NEA) save approximately 70% of the turtles they find alive. That's fantastic!

Brad Compton of UMass Amherst presented a talk on his models of turtle populations. He had models which estimated extinction and predicted ranges. But the best was a model which looked at the types of habitats that each turtle needed (ex: vernal pools for food in the spring, sandy banks for laying eggs, deeper water for hibernation). It then located areas of the state that had these habitats allowing for targeted searches for new turtle populations. Very cool.

Lori Erb of the Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program described conservation efforts in the commonwealth. In particular she spoke about Wood Turtle mortality due to field mowing. The NHESP has been working with farmers in areas where the Wood Turtle is present to determine what can be done to minimize turtle deaths. One option they found was to increase the mowing height. Not only does this reduce mortality but its actually better for the mower blades.

Lori also spoke about the Massachusetts Turtle Atlas. This is a great web site which allows citizens to report their turtle sightings. I can't wait until the spring so I can try it out.

There were also some great vendors at the symposium. I got a couple of T-shirts from the Vernal Pool Association and a fantastic photo of a Common Loon with chicks from John Slonina Photography.