turtle nesting season article & event

[Frederick W. Schueler]

just sent in to the North Grenville Times:

In early June female turtles leave their watery homes, and seek out
areas of warm bare soil where they can dig holes with their hind feet,
and lay their eggs. The eggs develop over the summer, and hatchlings
emerge either in the autumn, or, if Painted Turtles, overwinter in the
nest and emerge in the spring. Leaving the water means the nesting
females cross roads, where they are vulnerable to roadkill. Repeated
studies have found that populations of surviving turtles near roads have
an excess of males, because the males don’t go up onto the roads every
spring.

Through the 1990s there was increasing concern for road mortality of
Turtles, with a diversity of educational projects. In 2000 Turtle SHELL
Tortue collaborated with governments to erect the first signs warning
motorists of stretches of road where turtles were known to cross. In the
course of our activities, we record every Turtle we see on the roads,
and through the 1990s, during the months of May and June, we recorded
11.2 on-road turtles/year in eastern Ontario, of which 46% were alive
when seen. From 2000-2007 we again recorded 11.2 per year, of which 67%
were alive, a significant increase in the proportion seen alive (G= 8.7
p=0.003). This result, combined with the increased concern expressed
about road-crossing Turtles by many People, leads us to suspect that
drivers on provincial highways and county and township roads in Eastern
Ontario may be actively avoiding collisions with Turtles. Since then
we’ve again seen fewer alive-on-road turtles, but we encounter many
other drivers helping turtles across the road, and a turtle that’s been
helped across isn’t there to be seen.

All of Ontario’s turtle species are classified as Species-at-Risk, and
caring for injured adults, protecting nest sites, hatching eggs, and
fencing to keep turtles off roads are now major conservation activities.
The Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre in Peterborough has over-wintered
3,500 turtles brought to it injured or hatched out from rescued eggs;
Heather Fotherby at Natural Resource Solutions in Waterloo runs a Turtle
Nesting Notifications e-mail list by which readers can watch nesting
sweep across the province; Dave Seburn with the Canadian Wildlife
Federation is ramming the roads of eastern Ontario looking out for
turtles & hatching rescued eggs; Kari Gunson’s Eco-Kare International
provides guidance, fencing, & culvert design to help turtles get safely
under roads, and last year Katherine Black & Clay Shearer, with the
Algonquin to Adirondacks Collaborative & Blazing Star Environmental,
surveyed all the United Counties Roads for threats to turtles.

Because Kemptville Creek has such a low gradient, there are not a lot of
sites naturally suitable for nesting, and the major nesting
concentrations are in the sandy soil of bridge embankments, which
exposes the females to road mortality, and the eggs to predation by
Raccoons and other predatory mammals. In the Counties study, the County
Road 20 bridge over the creek was the largest nesting site found, with
80 nests identified. Given the large number of nests here, there’s
surprisingly little road mortality, but the report suggests fencing
along the guardrails to prevent nesting on the road shoulders, and
offshore artificial nesting mounds to provide alternative nesting
locations with some protection from Raccoons digging up the eggs.

Not all spring movements are to nesting; our first two on-road turtles
this year were a large female Painted Turtle smashed with blood & egg
yolk on the Branch Road on 28 April, and a large male Blanding’s Turtle
that we helped across the North Augusta Road on 19 May. Through the
summer and fall there are also non-nesting movements between habitat
patches, and, especially in Snapping Turtles, dispersal of juveniles.

When you see a turtle on the road, the first thing to do is, if
possible, to safely stop and help it across in the direction it is
heading. Even if it looks like there is better habitat behind it, there
is a reason it is going that direction and if you bring it back to where
it already was, it will just try to cross the road again. Release the
turtle well off the shoulder of the road to make sure it is completely
safe from traffic. The smaller species can be picked up from behind by
hand. “Always approach a Snapping Turtle from behind. Lift the turtle up
using the ‘pizza pie’ method: stabilize the tail with one hand, slide
your other hand underneath the turtle from behind and lift. Keep your
hands towards the back half of the turtle. Snapping Turtles have long
necks that can reach around and snap at you if you are holding it too
close to its face” (Parks Canada). Kari Gunson and I once got a huge
Snapper to clamp down on a willow branch, and then scooted it off the
road (this was after we had relieved two guys with a pickup truck who
had been puzzling how to get the turtle to move).

If you find an injured turtle, be very careful when moving it, don’t try
to feed it, put it in a dry box with air holes, and call the Ontario
Turtle Conservation Centre at (705)741-5000. They will guide you on the
next steps to get it to proper rehabilitatation, including arranging
transport for it.

On Friday, 7 June, at 6:30 pm, we will be looking out for the
turtle-nesting situation at the County Road 20 bridge over Kemptville
Creek, just east of the intersection with County Road 18, northeast of
Bishops Mills. We invite anyone who is interested to join us. This is
the hour when the most Snapping Turtles are nesting, there will be
plenty of evidence of Raccoon predation on nests, and a chance to see
the diversity of swallows that nest under the bridge.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Fragile Inheritance Natural History - https://fragileinheritance.ca/
FI Newsletter -
https://clt1233162.benchmarkurl.com/c/v?e=15E5037&c=12D10A&t=0&l=53EF5F06
2022 annual letter: https://clt1233162.bmeurl.co/EFE49F7
6 St-Lawrence Street Bishops Mills, RR#2 Oxford Station, Ontario K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44.87156° N 75.70095° W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca>
------------------------------------------------------------

[Frederick W. Schueler]

* and because this was down at the end of the article:

On 31-May-24 12:17 p.m., Frederick W. Schueler wrote:
> On Friday, 7 June, at 6:30 pm, we will be looking out for the
> turtle-nesting situation at the County Road 20 bridge over Kemptville
> Creek, just east of the intersection with County Road 18, northeast of
> Bishops Mills. We invite anyone who is interested to join us.  This is
> the hour when the most Snapping Turtles are nesting, there will be
> plenty of evidence of Raccoon predation on nests, and a chance to see
> the diversity of swallows that nest under the bridge.

- this will also be an opportunity to pick up some of the refuse so
generously littered along the roadsides here.

fred.

[V. Kirkwood]

I wish that the Counties and the Municipality would refrain from roadside gravel grading and ditch mowing during turtle nesting season.

Valerie

---

Visit my fine art photography page at http://valerie-kirkwood.fineartamerica.com/

[Frederick W. Schueler]

On 01-Jun-24 9:56 a.m., 'V. Kirkwood' via NatureList wrote:
> I wish that the Counties and the Municipality would refrain from
> roadside gravel grading and ditch mowing during turtle nesting season.

* they should map the places where Turtles nest along the shoulders, and
do the grading there in April & early May. They graded Co Rd 18 through
Bishops Mills on 30 April well before any Turtles would be nesting.

Mowing is a different question, because it "has to be done" after the
Grass has grown up to full height.