Wind-swept Rattlesnakes

It was overcast.  Thinly veiled streaks of formless, gray-blue clouds stretched to the horizon.  The rapidly warming day was quickly approaching the perfect basking conditions that I’d been waiting for all morning.  I was feeling optimistic and energized.  The spring semester had just finished and I’d soon be heading to New Hampshire for a position at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in early June.  That meant I had all of May at my leisure to pursue wildlife.  I wasn't about to waste a single minute that could be spent birding or herping.  

As I approached my destination, twenty five mph winds began to pick up.  The bare branches of trees and newly-emerged roadside greenery swayed and creaked as I gripped my steering wheel to steady myself.  Wind is generally not a friend to wildlife watchers.  It keeps the birds away and the herps under cover.  Old trees, aptly named “widow makers,” are of real concern.  Luckily, I was headed to one of Ohio’s last remaining Prairie remnants in Northwestern Ohio where the sparse trees pose little danger.  What I was there to look for, however, is another story entirely.   

I parked along a gravel ditch just as a small tree shuddered and gave way across the street.  The wind whipped across the open landscape, rustling through the grass as though hundreds of snakes were sliding all around me.  I suddenly began to understand the overwhelming sense of dread that ophidiophobes must experience when encountering a snake.  I strapped a pair of protective gaiters around each of my ankles.  There could be a concealed rattlesnake below any tuft of grass, and I wouldn't be able to see it or hear it over the gales.  

I’ve looked for Ohio’s two endangered rattlesnake species many times, but the smaller of the two has always eluded me.  Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnakes (Sistrurus catenatus) inhabit the wet meadows, bogs, and mesic prairies from New York to Ontario and as far west as Iowa and Missouri.  In Ohio, they were once considered commonplace across most of the glaciated half of the state.  Direct persecution, habitat loss, collection, and road mortality have reduced their 28 county range down to just nine remaining counties.  The eastern massasauga faces similar declines across eastern North America.  These snakes were recognized as nationally imperiled in the 70s and are thought to be extirpated from 40% of their original localities.  

Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnakes inhabit lowlands during the spring and fall, relying on crayfish burrows for cover and hibernation sites.  Water just below the surface that never freezes is a must.  If the frost layer penetrates the ground, the snakes will not survive.  Loss of suitable overwintering habitat or modifications to the water table quickly decimates massasauga populations.  Ohio alone has lost 90% of its original wetland habitat.  These snakes persist in landscapes that pose particular difficulty to agriculture, and were subsequently left relatively unchanged.

Uplands are just as important to massasauga ecology.  During the summer months, snakes move into upland forests to forage.  These landscapes are often unprotected or heavily developed, resulting in population declines even when the adjacent wetlands are protected.

With each step, water bubbled up through every crack and burrow in the mud.  I hadn’t walked one hundred meters from my car when I froze. Sitting coiled in a tight bun atop an elevated pile of dry prairie grass was a massasauga rattlesnake.  My heart raced as I took a few steps back and freed my camera from my pack.  I crept around the motionless rattlesnake, it’s dark body burning into my retinas.  Upon closer inspection, it became clear that this snake was not black, but tan with dark brown blotches; its triangular head and unblinking eyes were clearly visible through the tall grass.  Stretched out, the sauga would probably measure over two feet (these pigmy rattlesnakes max out at just under three feet).

I kept a respectful distance, well outside of the snake’s strike range, but I still didn’t want to startle the sleeping viper.  As I moved for a clearer shot of the head, the snake suddenly became aware of me.  Striking or even rattling unless thoroughly provoked is almost unheard of.  Massasaugas typically remain motionless, allowing the threat to pass by unawares.  Perplexing, the massasauga twitched in agitation with an almost copperhead-style movement as it coiled its neck and raised its buzzing tail.  I was shocked.  I’ve encountered timber rattlesnakes at closer range and never had one so much as tongue flick.  I stepped away, allowing the snake plenty of room to escape.  Butt still buzzing, the sauga slipped below the tangles of grass and out of sight.  I suddenly felt very glad I was wearing gaiters.  

I am confident that this uncharacteristic encounter was down to individual personality.  Carl Brune often tells the story of two eastern hog-nosed snakes he hatched from eggs.  One sibling would play dead whenever approached, while the other would only flare its hood and hiss.  Snakes are as much individuals as you or I.  

During the course of my search, I encountered three more massasaugas.  Two never budged as I watched and photographed them.  The third was found out on the crawl, and while it did coil up upon my approach, it never rattled or gave the faintest impression that it felt threatened.  After a few minutes, it slowly turned away and drifted off into the tall grass.  

After that first encounter, I was primed to be a bit jumpy.  I was scared half to death when a snake came lunging out of the tall grass in full strike, mouth agape.  After the initial shock wore off, I looked down to see a large, but utterly harmless, eastern gartersnake.  “What are you doing??” I said aloud, holding back laughter.  I plucked the grumpy garter from the grass and placed him off the trail.  Snakes, venomous and nonvenomous alike, have no interest in biting if they don’t have to.  All they want is to be out of harm's way.  Sadly, senseless killing by ignorant or fearful snake-haters continues.  It is not unheard of to discover a dead sauga with its rattle cut off—as a trophy.

Even where massasauga populations appear stable, a new threat has emerged on the scene.  In 2006, a fungal pathogen called Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola was discovered in Timber rattlesnakes.  This fungus targets wild and captive snakes, primarily rattlers and colubrids, in eastern North America and Europe.  It penetrates the epidermis though any small wound and causes lesions and blisters to form across the snake's head and body.  The origin and dispersal mechanism of this fungus are unknown, but it can survive in the environment without a host for some time.  Whether this fungus was introduced or a native turned virulent, it appears to work in tandem with other environment stressors like habitat modification and climate change.  Some snakes may be able to shed repeatedly to keep the fungus at bay, but many succumb as the infection attacks the deeper layers of skin, muscle, and bone.  Massasaugas are particularly vulnerable to this Snake Fungal Disease, and their already dwindling populations are being pushed closer toward extirpation by its spread.

I've visited many historical localities where the tufts of wiregrass and crayfish burrows no longer harbor wild massasaugas due to poaching and habitat modification.  Without their swamp rattlers, these wet meadows, fens, bogs, and prairies feel eerily empty.  It would be an irreparable shame to see the littlest of Ohio's vipers disappear from its final strongholds.

Thanks for reading!
Keep living the field life.
Ryan

An "Aberrant Eastern Gartersnake"

Plains gartersnakes (Thamnophis radix) are a common species from south central Canada through the Great Plains to Texas and Oklahoma.  Across this expansive range, their populations can reach densities of 300 individuals per acre.  They are not a rare snake by any stretch of the imagination.  In Ohio, however, the entire range of this species is restricted to just one county within one prairie remnant (and not even the entirety of that).  Ohio plains garters are snakes out of time.

5,000 years ago, the climate in Ohio was very different than it is today.  The Xerothermic period, as it is called, was significantly dryer and hotter by as much as five degrees Celsius with 25% less rainfall.  For several thousand years, Ohio’s climate closely resembled modern day Kansas.  This warm, dry period was marked by an expansion of western biota into the state.  Flora and fauna that we associate with the great plains, found suitable habitat in this “prairie peninsula.”  When the climate shifted again (to the cooler, wetter present), the prairies receded, leaving behind a few isolated prairie pockets where clay soils inundate the landscape for much of the year (such as on ancient riverbeds), preventing the expansion of forests.  Today, agriculture has reduced the 12,000 ha of contiguous wet prairie across northwestern Ohio to a few thousands disjunct hectares.  

The entire Ohio Plains Garter population is so localized that these snakes were not verified in Ohio until 1945.  Even the great herpetologist, Roger Conant, who collected the first specimen in 1931, mistook the washed-out DOR (dead on road) snake for an “aberrant eastern gartersnake.”  This is the ultimate case study in local abundance.  While these snakes would have originally inhabited a larger expanse of the available prairies in Ohio, habitat loss and land-use changes have reduced their already limited populations by as much as 94% in some areas.  Where they still occur, there can be hundreds per acre.  However, the sympatric eastern gartersnake (Thamnophis sirtalis sirtalis) outnumbers the plains by about ten to one.  If I had any hopes of finding a plains, each and every striped snake I discovered would have to be thoroughly examined.

A terrestrial crayfish burrow 

In preparation for a long week of finals, my girlfriend, Julia Joos, and I decided to take a weekend herping trip to unwind.  We arrived in northwestern Ohio in the evening, anticipating an early morning search the following day.  The weather, however, had other ideas.  That night brought storm clouds and frigid temperatures that stuck around until late afternoon.  The clouds finally burned off just a few hours before sunset.  We hoped the timid sunshine and mild temperatures would be enough to entice the snakes to bask. 

The flat expanse of fields and croplands intermitently bisected by roads might not look like much to the passing observer, but I could tell right away that this habitat was great.  Hollow mud chimneys—the entrances to the burrows of the terrestrial crayfish species Falicambarus fodiens—were everywhere.  These burrows are not only a sign of high water quality and good soil chemistry, they also provide the snakes with refugia during inactive times of the day and year.  Modify the water table or introduce pollutants that wipe out the crayfish, and the snakes will invariably disappear along with them.  

In early spring, the vegetation is still brown and brittle, weighted down from months of snowpack.  With their lateral stripes, gartersnakes camouflage perfectly among the criss-crossing network of dried reeds.  I hiked quickly, scanning the ground and listening for rustling movement.  Julia was more careful.  She found the first snake of the day in a spot I had tromped right over.  It was an eastern gartersnake, still muddy from the crayfish burrow it had recently emerged from.  During the next hour, we found half a dozen more garters, but none were quite what we were looking for.  I finally resolved to photograph one of the more colorful individuals coiled up among the mud and grass.  As I set up my camera, Julia called out from just over my shoulder.

“Oh, here’s another one!” she said.  I turned around to see a large gartersnake coiled among the grass.  “Nope!” I laughed, “that’s our radix!”  Had I not been looking for the subtle defining characteristics of the plains garter, I easily could have passed this snake by.  Even through the snake’s mud-dusted scales, I could tell its stripes were unusually black.  The dead giveaway that this was our plains garter, however, was the yellow-orange stripe running the length of the garter’s back.  Out of the hundreds of variations of the eastern gartersnake that I have seen over the years, none have had a stripe quite that color.

The garter cooperated nicely, coiling in front of us and tongue flicking.  After a few shots the snake decided it had had enough, and zipped away through the grass.  The purpose of those stripes becomes clear when a garter flees through a vegetated landscape.  longitudinal stripes make it significantly harder to judge the snake's speed, length, and direction.  The plains garter seemed to almost meld with the landscape it so depends on. 

A juvenile plains gartersnake (Thamnophis radix)

On a return visit to the area a few weeks later, I was lucky enough to find a juvenile plains gartersnake, a good sign that these endangered snakes are breeding.  Despite the perilous predicament these snakes find themselves in, very little management is directed towards their conservation.  Reintroduction efforts through captive breeding have been underway for years, but these snakes still face a host of threats in their final stronghold.  The landscape they call home is primarily managed for waterfowl hunting.  Scheduled mowing of their field habitat has been shifted to coincide with snake inactivity, but individuals are still occasionally killed.

Like that first specimen found by Conant in the 30s, road mortality is one of the easiest ways to discover this species.  I found a large adult T. radix, carelessly crushed by a speeding vehicle as the harmless snake attempted to cross between habitat patches.  Even though plains gartersnakes are common across the great plains, the disjunct populations in Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois all represent unique genetic lineages.  They are important contributions to the biodiversity of our state and to the persistence of these remaining prairie patches.  

Herping PA: Concrete and Canoes

Short-headed garter snakes (Thamnophis brachystoma) only occur in one or two counties in extreme eastern Ohio.  Truth be told, it isn’t even known whether they are true natives to the buckeye state.  It is possible they have expanded their range or have been introduced from Pennsylvania, one of only two other states they are known from (the other being New York).  Growing just over a foot in length, the short head is an inhabitant of fields and meadows along waterways.  These elegant earthworm eaters are much smaller than the eastern gartersnake, with a narrow, neckless head and pleasing tan and gray stripes.  They are a species I had written off.  The likelihood of encountering one was just too slim.  I’d have to travel to PA to find one, and even then, where would I start my search?

Luck would have it that Dr. Popescu’s new PhD student, Matt Kaunert, was beginning his project smack dab in the middle of their range.  Within an hour of our arrival in northwestern Pennsylvania, he found us three individuals (and seven eastern garters).  This was going to be a trip to remember.  Andrew Travers, Christine Hanson, and myself had traveled the five hours from Athens, Ohio to help him begin his project.  Matt was studying another rare species of herp I never imagined I would get to see: North America’s largest salamander species, the eastern hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis).

That morning, Matt had driven to check each of the creeks we were scheduled to survey, and his report didn’t look good.  It had rained the previous night, and the normally clear streams were now cloudy with sediment and debris.  Visibility would be so poor that finding the large, flat rocks hellbenders like to hide under would be next to impossible.  Even if we could stumble upon a suitable rock, the water would be too murky to see anything lurking below.  We would have to wait and hope for dry weather and check the streams again in two days.  In the meantime, we would get started on another aspect of his project: building hellbender nest boxes.  

Matt led us to his family’s campground where he was preparing for the field season.  We crept down the dirt road at 5 miles an hour and emerged into a neighborhood of little, ramshackle buildings and trailers in varying states of disrepair.  Not 200 meters from their back porches, the enormous river flowed under a skyline of forested hills.  Kayakers drifted lazily along as juvenile bald eagles soared overhead, practicing their flying.  I felt goosebumps rise on my arms at the thought of hellbenders hiding just feet below the water’s surface.  Matt’s camp was a delightful, two room trailer-mobile home hybrid, with running water, four beds, and a flat screen TV.  Out back, sat several rows of what appeared to be miniature, concrete coffins. 

Each coffin was about a meter long, with a rounded top that narrowed into an open tunnel at the base.  A removable lid provided full access to the hollow interior of the concrete box.  Placed in the appropriate streams, these baby coffins should mimic the natural rock cavities that hellbenders require to reproduce.  Matt has already completed some 60 nest boxes and hopes to nearly double that by the time he gets the go ahead to deploy them.  

Christine Hanson and Andrew Travers working on a nest box.

With the streams out of commission the following day, we got started on four new boxes.  It was taxing work—for me anyway.  Matt and Andrew are big guys, and had little trouble carrying bags of sand and concrete, shoveling the steaming mixture, and hammering out old molds.  I mostly took pictures and provided moral support.  By this point, Matt has the system down to a science, but he still showed us his first attempts—crumpled concrete heaps hidden behind the shed.  These boxes will be the first of their kind deployed in Pennsylvania, but only time will tell if they really work.  A narrow PVC pipe protruding from the rounded top allows access with a submersible camera.  With luck, we will be the first to film hellbender breeding activity in a nest box setting. 

Once the four new boxes were set, we had the rest of the day to enjoy ourselves.  We went herping of course.  The day was simply gorgeous, mid-seventies with a cool breeze and clear, blue skies; we were all itching to get on the water.  We loaded canoes and paddle boards into the truck and headed for the river.  Matt had turtles on the brain.  Spiny softshells and snappers are a common sight basking along the shore, but it takes lightning fast reflexes to catch them before they slip into the water.  I’d never herped by canoe before; it is definitely one of the more relaxing ways to seek slimy and scaly creatures.  We drifted along (I let Andrew do most of the paddling), scanning the banks for signs of turtles.  “They will look like a shiny pancake,” Matt said, referring to the spiny softshells.  Matt went into full paddle, standing on his canoe, heading for a series of rocks.  I watched as several shiny circles plopped into the stream long before Matt reached them.  Luckily, he wasn’t deterred. 

Matt has herped this river ever since he was a boy.  He knows the best spots and has encountered just about every creature that can be found here.  Where the rest of us had just seen mud, he pried an enormous snapping turtle from the muck with a grin.  He taught us how to feel for softshells with our feet and crept up sandbars on his belly—a trick to spot turtles before they disappear into the water.  As we paddled back towards camp, Matt saw something on the bank none of us had noticed.  He leapt from his canoe, clipping his eyelid on a branch, and pinned a softshell turtle in the water.  With blood streaming down his face, he lifted the struggling turtle—larger than a dinner plate—and placed it on the bank for us to photograph.

Eastern spiny softshells (Apalone spinifera) are an impressive creature.  They display all the ferocity of a snapping turtle with the agility of a frog.  They launch themselves into the water leaving nothing but a trail of sediment in their wake.  A snorkel-like snout and a serpentine neck allow them to reach the surface for air while remaining buried in the sediment.  Softshells are essentially a river turtle and can be quite common throughout Ohio and western Pennsylvania.  I had never seen one so large—having caught only young individuals on the OU campus.  

It seemed the weather was not going to cooperate for our hellbender survey.  That night, the forecast called for rain.  We tried to will the storm past, but as the winds picked up, a heavy thunderstorm swept through camp, extinguishing our electricity and with it the last of our hellbender hopes.  We went to bed with heavy hearts.

We woke late the next morning, packed our gear and headed for one of the survey streams.  Matt craned his neck to peer through the passenger window at the murky creek flowing below.  “Uh oh,” he said distantly.  Seeing my crestfallen expression, he added, “uh oh in a good way.”  The water was the color of tea, but even from the road I could see large slabs of rock resting several inches below the surface.  Despite the rains, the river had cleared significantly.  “Let’s take a drive,” Matt said with growing confidence.

Hellbender Hopes.  To be continued. . .

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. . .