March 29, 2024

Bristol Aggie Release Rare Blanding’s Turtles

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On May 22, 2014 the sophomore Natural Resources Management (NRM) students of the Bristol County Agricultural School (Bristol Aggie) completed a nine-month component of project created to help insure the survival of a rare reptile in Massachusetts and beyond. The NRM students have been head-starting (raising young animals in captivity until past their most vulnerable stage) 92 hatchling Blanding’s Turtles, Emydoidea blandingii, since the beginning of this school year. The average hatchling weighed only 8 grams when US Fish & Wildlife personnel delivered them to Bristol Aggie in September. Upperclassmen, who had previously worked the project, instructed the NRM sophomore in care and data collection. Soon after, Dr. Kurt Buhlmann, of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory/University of Georgia, delivered a presentation on Blanding’s Turtle biology and the details of the research of which the NRM sophomores are now a part.

Every turtle is given a unique sequence of small notches in the edges of its shell. Each sequence of notches represents unique number and every number is recorded. The notched numbers allow students and biologists to identify individual turtles. The NRM students weigh and measure all of the head-starts weekly and track the growth of every individual. Individual identification is essential so that the turtles’ progress may be tracked through time, both during the head-starting process and after release. Students enter their data into an online spreadsheet which is instantly available to all of the cooperating research partners. Feeding and cleaning are daily chores. The turtles are fed a commercially-produced diet and a specially formulated “turtle gelatine” made fresh by the NRM Department. Blanding’s Turtles hatchlings in the Bristol Aggie Rare Turtle Head-Start Program have exhibited a 96% average survival rate and 500% average growth (in weight) over the past three years. The NRM sophomores weighed and measured their Blanding’s Turtles for the last time on May 21, 2014.

On May 22 the students carefully packed turtles for the long drive to US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Dr. Stephanie Koch at the Assabet National Wildlife Refuge in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Brian Butler, of Oxbow Associates, Inc., worked with the NRM students to double check all of the turtles’ numbers and condition before they are released into the refuge. Jared Green and Patty Levasseur, both working with the US F&WS, explained the techniques and technology that they will use to track the released turtles in order to determine their survival rate in the wild. Ms. Levasseur is a graduate of the Bristol Aggie NRM program and it was especially satisfying to watch her teaching the students who are now where she once was. Several of the NRM sophomores remarked that they now looked up to her and that, “She is cool.”

Once preparations and lessons were completed everyone climbed into canoes and paddled through the densely vegetated wetland to the release site. Along the way Jared and Patty pointed out particular components of the habitat that make this site such wonderful Blanding’s Turtle habitat. Then it was time for the students to release the turtles, which they have some diligently watched over for months. The students slowly lowered their turtles into the dark, weedy water.

Some turtles swam away quickly. Some even begin feeding on small invertebrates almost immediately. “This project with Bristol Aggie is a model of how scientists can collaborate with students,” Dr. Buhlmann asserts. The results of this decade-long research will determine if head-starting is an effective tool to conserve this imperiled turtles and will hopefully be useful to turtle conservation efforts around the world. The data collected by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Oxbow Associates personnel are suggesting that this effort is working far better than the mathematical models predicted. The NRM students found a little evidence of their own just before leaving the refuge. A juvenile Blanding’s Turtle was found by some of the students. They immediately brought the turtle to Brian Butler. The now barely-visible notches indicated that this was turtle 3342. Our records indicated that it was released by the first group of Bristol Aggie NRM students who participated in this researched. None of us had seen this turtle since May 21, 2010 when it weighed only 25.6 grams. It looked to be in wonderful condition and now weighs 257 grams. The Bristol Aggie NRM students have released 461 Blanding’s Turtles since 2010.

Figure 1: Emily Coyne, of North Attleboro,

holding Blanding’s Turtle 3342.

Figure 2: Brian Butler, of Oxbow Associates, Inc., (far left) teaching the Bristol Aggie NRM students about Blanding’s Turtle anatomy.

Figure 3: NRM students paddling to the release site.

Figure 4: Head-started Blanding’s Turtles, now the size of four year old wild grown turtles, ready for release.

Figure 5: Blanding’s Turtle about to be released.

Figure 6: The Bristol Aggie NRM sophomores at the 2014 Blanding’s Turtle Release. The Bristol Aggie NRM Department Rare Turtle Head-Starting Program is conducted in cooperation with the US Fish & Wildlife Service, Savannah River Ecology Laboratory/University of Georgia, Oxbow Associstes, LLC., the MA Division of Fisheries and Wildlife with generous support from Hannaford Supermarkets and the Walt Disney Company.

Additional Information

http://usfwsnortheast.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/students-take-pride-in-contributing-to-turtle-conservation/

http://ne-ecological-services.blogspot.com/2012/10/students-take-pride-in-contributing-to.html

Blanding’s Turtle Fact Sheet

Bristol Aggie NRM Department

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