A Turtle Fairwell

Tomorrow I will release the last of our box turtle study subjects.  After two years and countless miles and hours of field and lab work, the box turtle project will finally come to an end.  I’ve been so busy with life and work that I haven’t had a chance to update the blog.  A lot has changed this season.

After a winter hiatus, tracking started back up in mid-March, just as the turtles were emerging from hibernation.  All 30 animals survived the cold, and after climbing out of the soil and leaf litter, they took off in every direction with a vengeance.  We had become efficient trackers by the end of last season, but now the turtles were putting our skills to the test.  We once again chased them up and down ravines, across clearings, under fallen logs, and even to the edge of rocky cliffs.  We sweated in the heat of an unusually hot spring, and shivered in the early morning fog.  In order to get enough GPS points by the end of the project, our four day schedule was changed to a full seven (luckily I worked only 5 days each week).

Our little turtle team has grown substantially over the past year.  Where once there were just three of us, now some 16 volunteers have joined the party.  Most are wildlife, marine bio, or plant bio undergrads, as well as a group of students from Hocking college.  Marcel Weigand is still the brains behind the project, but preoccupied with her thesis, she has left the field work up to us.  I have since taken a leadership role on the project, co-leading the tracking and data collection and training new members.  My fellow leads include Christine Hanson—another wildlife undergrad, and Eva Garcia—a master’s student from France.  I can’t thank them all enough for their passion, dedication, and humor that kept us going throughout the season.  I have made some wonderful, mosquito-bitten friends.

The tracking season went as smoothly as could be expected.  I think we ruined about 10 of the telemetry cords, and used up more batteries than I care to admit.  We clipped the turtle’s nails just as we had last season (this time in the field) and took all their measurements.  We quickly realized that the epoxy holding the antennas to each of the turtles’ shells was beginning to break down.  By late June, Trevor slipped his transmitter—never to be seen again.  This unfortunate loss of data left us fearful that other turtles would soon go missing as well.  Shear luck led us to Lonesome George after he lost his transmitter under a fallen log.  

Many of the turtles once again traveled within meters of the road, but none ever attempted to cross—a puzzling relief.  Our data has shown that the effects of major roadways like the Nelsonville Bypass may be more complex than expected.  Turtles not killed on the road are not necessarily subject to higher stress than their control counterparts.  Likewise, we found little difference in home range size and habitat selection between sites.  What we did find interesting is the fact that female box turtles travel a lot more than males.  This is contrary to what the literature says for most turtle species.  We also verified a novel technique for measuring corticosterone as a proxy for stress in eastern box turtles, and added to our knowledge of mitigation and management requirements for this species. 

It was bitter sweet saying goodbye to our 30 study animals.  They had endured our research long enough, and it was time for them to be fully wild again.  Even after 2 years, I am still surprised by these animals almost every day.  Just when I think I’ve cracked these armored fiends, they prove me all wrong.  I suppose I’ll never completely understand them, and that’s the way it should be.  I have gotten to know these animals as individuals—each one special and unique.  Below, I have included a photo and description of nearly all our study subjects.  This project was for their benefit, and I hope our data can help to protect these remarkable reptiles long into the future.

Rumple-"scute"-skin

If I had to pick a favorite turtle it would probably be this one.  Rumple almost always stayed in the same field and surrounding woodland and was never shy when encountered.  He happily posed for photos, and rarely closed up his shell.  He was also one of the prettiest looking turtles I have ever seen.

Ethel

This turtle had one of the biggest home ranges of any of our study subjects.  She moved from the woods near where we parked, up and over the ravines, all the way to the roadside. She began our trend of naming these animals like old ladies.

Scar 

This old boy is named for his damaged shell.  We think that years ago a coyote chewed on him, causing his scutes to heal in a rugged pattern.  

Glados

A reliable female that likes to hang out not far from another turtle, Max.  She did occasionally hide from us in the soil or at the bottom of the ravines.

Zaphod

He may not have two heads, but this turtle moves enough that he might as well have his own spaceship. He proves that this project was full of excitement, adventure, and really wild things.

Penelope
This is the only turtle that bit me!  And she actually drew blood too.  Otherwise she is an attractively marked turtle that rarely gave us much trouble.

King George

One of our biggest males.  He's right up there with rumple as one of the favorites.  He is always on the move and usually crawls away while we are still taking his data.

Gertrude

This turtle traveled all the way from the parking area of our impact sight clear up to the ridge side!  I am always stunned where we end up finding this girl.

Hidey

This is the best picture I could get of the aptly named Hidey.  When trying to clip his nails, he stayed clamped in his shell for three days.

Rose

A reliable female that hangs out by the trail.  Turtles like Rose quickly became favorites in the heat of the summer.

Phil 

A little male who is always reliable.  Good job Phil!

Max 

He likes to hang out near Glados.  Those two are always good turtles to track.

Beyonce 

Definitely our most famous turtle.  She wasn't always named Beyonce, but she quickly earned the title. This turtle moved over a mile in a week, all the way from our control site to the Hocking College Nature Center in order to lay eggs.  She was our first clue to the fact that turtle tracking was not going to be easy.

Albert

A turtle that usually hangs out around the field in our control.  He is usually easy to find, although he occasionally will disappear on us for a few days.

Dorris

Dorris spent most of the active season in the open field adjacent to the bypass.  She regularly moved within 20 meters of the road, but thankfully, never attempted to cross.  She nearly gave me a heart attack each time I tracked her up to the brush along the right of way.

Lonesome George

This turtle gave us more grief than any other.  He came down with a serious upper respiratory infection that we feared was the deadly ranavirus. Luckily he was negative and even recovered well from his infection.  He is named Lonesome George after the last Galapagos Pinta Island tortoise because he stayed far away from any other turtle.

Poopzilla

She earned that name.  When we first opened the pencil case in which we carried this turtle back to the lab, there was more poop than turtle.  Despite her less than flattering name, the male turtles can't seem to get enough of Poopzilla.  We have found her mating with a large male nicknamed Romeo on multiple occasions.

Timber

I'm proud of this turtle's name.  Without fail we find him mixed in with fallen logs, branches, and other woody debris.

Bertha

This big female is the only turtle in our study that does not have red eyes (its a myth that you can tell the sexes apart by eye color).  She was almost certainly full of eggs when we found her. 

Bo   

A little male that likes to endlessly go up and down the ravines.  

Stumpy

One of my personal favorites.  Stumpy is missing both front and back legs on her right side. We worried she would be an outlier in the study, but she was able to travel just as much as any other animal.  She truly showed us how resilient these reptiles can be.

Sir Turt

Sir Tert was always eating.  Mushrooms, slugs, leaves, caterpillars.  Whenever we found him, his beak was covered in the goo of his last meal.

Lady Macbeth

The scars on this turtle's back earned her this name.  She has seen some stuff. Out, out.

Cofefe

My liberal is showing.

Storm 

Don't even get me started on Storm.  This turtle was the bane of our existence.  We found her in a torrential downpour halfway through the first season right on the trail.  She proceeded to take off down the steepest ravine at least a half mile from any other turtle. Ugh.

Five Alive

This turtle was always on the other side of the fence.  We would track in ravine one day and it would be on the other side.  The next day we would be at the ridge on the opposite side of the fence and this turtle would have crossed over in the meantime.  He evaded us in this way most of the season.

It feels like a lifetime ago that we found each of these animals with John Rucker and his trusty turtle dogs.  Marcel and I often fondly recall that week as the longest of our lives.  Last Tuesday, Marcel defended her thesis.  She passed of course, as we all knew she would.  But that didn't stop our lab’s collective blood pressure from sky rocketing in preparation for the big day.  It was a delight to watch Marcel present on our findings and accomplishments.  “A little more statistics, and this could easily be a PhD project,” Marcel told me.  Her talk was excellent, full of passion for the animals and hope for their long term survival.  The little classroom was packed wall to wall—it seemed everyone in the wildlife biology department wanted to hear about our turtles.  

The following day, the turtle team met one final time for a bon fire at Stroud's Run.  We gathered at the very same campsite where we had picked up John and his dogs every morning, now over a year ago.  It was a poetic ending to the coolest experience I have ever been a part of.  Marcel has begun the daunting task of writing the publication and looking for her next job.  I wish her luck in all her future endeavors.  Her passion and dedication in the face of so much adversity has inspired me to work as hard as I can each and every day.  

It really is the end of an era.  So where do I go from here?

Next week, I join Christine Hanson, Andrew Travers, and Dr. Popescu’s new PhD student, Matt Kaunert, on a trip to Pennsylvania in search of the world’s third largest salamander species.  I’ve wanted to see eastern hellbenders ever since I was a kid.  Now could be my chance. . .

Another Snake with a Red Belly: Kirtland's Snake

The flooded vegetation sloshed underfoot, threatening to flood my muck boots with each step.  After driving two hours through a torrential downpour, a break in the weather had my snake senses tingling.  We were slogging through one of the more unusual of midwestern Ohio’s habitats, a wet meadow.  Every few feet, my friend Daniel Moniz—The Herpetographer—paused to flip pieces of rusty roofing tin, now submerged under several centimeters of water.  Tall grass and small trees obscured my view of the boards until we were right on top of them.  After two days of near constant rain, the wet meadow held true to its name.  We were actually concerned that the boards would be too wet, driving Ohio’s most terrestrial water snake to occupy alternative shelter.  

Daniel was conducting a survey for Kirtland’s snakes (Clonophis kirtlandii)—part of a team effort across western Ohio to determine the species' current status.  Kirtland’s snakes are seen so infrequently that its difficult to know where they still occur in Ohio.  Having disappeared from many previously occupied counties, Kirtland’s snakes can still be found in a few scattered localities across the western half of the state.  As an already threatened species, we were sure to have all our permits in order.  

As we flipped one of the larger pieces of corrugated metal, the tail end of a little snake protruded from the only patch of dry vegetation.  “That’s a Kirtland’s,” Daniel exclaimed.  I plucked the snake from the grass, breathing a sigh of awe and relief.  As we brought the snake into the light, however, we immediately realized our mistake.  The snake was speckled with a row of parallel spots, not large, black blotches.  This little snake was a Dekay’s or brown snake (Storeria dekayi).  An interesting, if not uncommon find.  We returned the snake to its shelter, and moved on to the next board.

This time, we hit pay dirt.  Nearly the same size and shape as the Dekay’s, the juvenile Kirtland’s snake sat coiled near a crayfish burrow.  Daniel picked the snake up before it could disappear back underground.  Kirtland’s snakes require crayfish burrows in which to spend the winter and the hottest, driest days of summer.  They are a relatively sedentary snake, moving only short distances from their personal crayfish getaway.

The juvenile Kirtland’s was in mid-shed with blue eye caps and dulled colors, but I could still tell what an attractive species it was.   Its pattern consisted of a series of large, black blotches, running the length of a red-brown and cream-colored back.  Flip a Kirtland’s snake over, and you will reveal one of the most surprising and stunning bellies of any snake species—bright red ventral scales bordered by a series of black spots.

The Kirtland’s snake is named for Dr. Jared Potter Kirtland, an 18th century physician and Ohio born naturalist from Lakewood.  Birders may know him for the warbler species that also carries his namesake (Setophaga kirtlandii).  Kirtland’s snakes are found only in Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Illinois, and Indiana, and are considered rare and declining across their entire range.  They still maintain local strongholds, and have even been able to eke out a living in some urban and residential areas.  

As we began our search for an adult Kirtland’s, we happened upon another snake species I had only heard about in legends.  This black racer wasn't black—it was gun metal gray—likely an intergrade between the black and the blue subspecies (Coluber constrictor subspp).  I couldn’t believe our good luck.  The black subspecies in the east is separated from the blue in the west by a blurry band of hybrids and intergrades of varying shades.  As I attempted to pose the little racer for photographs, it gave me one smart bite on the thumb before disappearing back into the tall grass.

With two rare Ohio snakes under our belts, we had our minds on another species.  The eastern Massasuaga rattlesnake (Sistrurus catenatus) could occur here as well.  Having lived in Michigan for several years, Daniel knows what and where to look for this endangered pygmy rattlesnake.  If anyone can find them here, it’s him.  With the help of old locality records, Daniel has also been hot on the trail of the spotted turtle (Clemmys guttata), another threatened species in Ohio.  The state’s rarest herpetofauna may still be at home in the wet fields and meadows of western Ohio.

The following boards we flipped seemed impossibly waterlogged.  They practically floated on top of several inches of inundated vegetation.  I was astonished to find a large, likely gravid, female Kirtland’s snake hanging suspended in the water under one of the sheets of tin.  The rain and rising water level hadn't frightened her away.  In fact, Daniel thought he recognized the snake from a previous trip—and it was under the very same board.

This Kirtland’s snake was an impressive specimen, about the length of your average eastern garter, slightly chunkier, and with heavily keeled scales.  Her detailed pattern and colors were astonishingly vivid—that belly is no joke.  Kirtland’s snakes occasionally mock strike, but never bite when handled.  Daniel pointed out this species' bizarre, exaggerated breathing as the little snake sat placidly in my hand.  Her ribs visibly expanded and contracted as if she were trying to pump out a sound. We released the handsome snake back under the tin, beyond satisfied with the scaly encounter.  

Threats to Kirtland’s snakes still persist across their range.  Much of their habitat has already been lost to agriculture and development and succession of forests continue to reduce natural meadow habitat. The use of pesticides and other chemicals threaten to damage the crayfish burrow micro biomes which these, and others snakes, depend upon for shelter.  Road mortality, controlled burns, construction, and illegal collection for the pet trade have all taken their toll.  Where they still are found, Kirtland’s snakes are an essential link to a more pristine and wild Ohio.

I thanked Daniel for the excellent trip, hoping to meet back up with him in the field soon.  I left for home, brain swimming with kirtland's snakes, spotted turtles, and imaginary massasaugas, nothing but rainy oblivion on the darkening horizon, and two hours home. . .