Vol. 4, No. 2 Contents
Headline Back Issues
Spring 2000
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NH researchers hope to learn about habitat from tagged turtles' travelsBy Suzy Fried, Editor Concord, New Hampshire - This summer, researchers will be tailing Blanding's turtles traveling in the southeastern part of the state, hoping that the shy, wetland reptiles will reveal important information about themselves. Remarkable for their unusually long necks that allow them to breathe above the water's surface while keeping their bodies submerged, Blanding's turtles (they take their name from naturalist William Blanding) have bright yellow throats and chins, and dark, helmet-shaped shells. They usually measure seven to nine inches long at adulthood. Organizers of the tracking project want to learn more about the types of wetlands and other habitat the turtles use for feeding, breeding, nesting, and resting. "We're hoping we can create a picture of what the landscape needs to look like to support Blanding's turtles," said John Kanter of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department's Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Program. "We want to actually produce maps of those habitats and give them to the local municipalities" to encourage them to incorporate protection of turtle habitat into their land use planning, he said. The Audubon Society of New Hampshire will help with those public education efforts. This spring, researchers have been attaching small radio transmitters to Blanding's turtles in coastal and interior sections of the southeastern part of the state. They want to track the movement of 30 turtles during the summer and early autumn to find out whether and how the creatures actually use areas that are believed to be turtle habitat, said Kim Babbitt, Assistant Professor of Wildlife Ecology at the University of New Hampshire. Noting that the project will follow turtles in developed coastal areas along the Great Bay as well as in less developed areas west of Concord, Babbitt asks, "Do turtles in a more developed area do things differently from turtles in a less developed area?" Last year and the year before, a separate turtle tracking project followed the movements of Blanding's turtles near the Lamprey River - the largest tributary to the Great Bay Estuary, and a federally protected Wild and Scenic River. The study, funded mostly by the Lamprey River Advisory Council, revealed that the turtles travel relatively long distances among their various habitats, which "shows the importance of keeping large tracts of land intact for roving wildlife," said Kanter. There goes the neighborhoodExperts say wetland turtles travel as much as a half mile at a time among the wetlands, rivers, fields, sandy spots, and other areas that comprise their feeding, breeding, and nesting grounds. As roads have bisected many of these areas and wetlands have been filled in for development, the turtles have had to venture even farther to find the habitat they need. Their lengthier travels expose them to even more dangers from predators, vehicles, and turtle-collecting humans. As the reptiles concentrate into shrinking habitat areas, predators can wipe out large numbers at a time. Blanding's turtles share much of their habitat with spotted turtles, named for the yellow markings on their black shells, and wood turtles, which have distinctive orange markings and bumpy shells. According to Naturalist David Carroll, who has studied and written about wetland turtles in New Hampshire for 15 years and has participated in both turtle tracking projects, the three turtles are considered "umbrella species," because, "If you can protect the habitat so those species persist, then you are protecting for many other species," such as freshwater mussels, neotropical migrant birds, and waterfowl. Carroll said the three turtles are also "indicator species" for the health of the freshwater systems that feed into the Great Bay Estuary and the Gulf of Maine. "If they are present and if they're doing well, then it means you've got a habitat complex that is very good for many other animal species as well as plant species," he said. Residing mostly in the southeast part of the state, though they can range as far north as the Ossipee Lake region, Blanding's turtles spend much of their time in vernal pools - temporary bodies of water that flood in the spring. The pools serve as breeding areas and provide springtime feasts of amphibian larvae and invertebrate eggs. All three turtle species rely on those and other wetlands, as well as on surrounding uplands that they use as feeding grounds and traveling corridors to nesting areas. Protection spottyNew Hampshire conservationists consider Blanding's, spotted, and wood turtles "species of concern" because of their declining populations in the state, with Blanding's turtles considered to be the most vulnerable. But none of the three is listed as endangered or threatened under the state's endangered species legislation. Carroll said New Hampshire prohibits people from taking the turtles from the wild, "But there's nothing that protects the habitat and that's the tough issue." "We have some laws to protect wetlands but we don't have enough laws to protect upland buffers around them," noted Mark Kern, Environmental Scientist with the US Environmental Protection Agency's New Hampshire Unit, which provides key funding for the current tracking project. In the Gulf of Maine region, the most legal protection afforded any of the three turtle species is in Maine, where that state's southeast coastal Blanding's turtle population is ranked as endangered under state legislation. Blanding's turtles are also found in eastern central Massachusetts, where they are listed as threatened. The Nova Scotia population lives in Kejimkujik National Park, just outside the Gulf's watershed boundary, but Acadia University turtle researcher Tom Herman believes it is possible that the turtles may, in fact, live in the Bay of Fundy watershed as well. Compounded vulnerabilityUnlike more mobile birds and mammals, turtles are less able to relocate as habitat becomes unsuitable, explained Carroll, who said, "The reason they're declining is that the habitat is simply being taken away." The turtles' vulnerability is compounded by their low reproductive rate. Blanding's, spotted, and wood turtles are potentially long-lived. Blanding's turtles can live to be 70, but researchers say relatively few of them survive to reach reproductive maturity, which is 12 years for males and 15 years for females. Turtle researchers are uniformly taciturn about the animals' specific whereabouts, fearing raids by collectors. According to Brian Butler, a wetlands consultant who studies the turtles in Massachusetts, "The population dynamics of Blanding's are such that even the unnatural loss of a couple of individuals can be serious in the long term." Turtle conservationists say the way to protect turtles is to preserve their habitat. On a small scale, this means leaving natural vegetation along banks and shorelines undisturbed; maintaining unmowed buffers at the edges of fields, pastures, and lawns; and leaving fallen debris in streams, rivers, ponds, and wetlands to provide feeding and hiding places for the turtles. But they also call for more sweeping action, such as the conservation of important Blanding's turtle habitat in southern Maine's Mount Agamenticus region. There, The Nature Conservancy, the state's Land for Maine's Future Program, and local land trusts have collaborated to acquire 3,500 acres/1,416 hectares that include Blanding's turtle habitat. "What we need to do is try to find out where there still are contiguous complex diverse habitats and somehow set them aside," without turning them into recreation land for humans, said Carroll. "We've got to leave some of the landscape alone and we've got to do it on a large enough scale."
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