Successful turtle resuce operation

[Jeff Hathaway]

This weekend, Jenny and I teamed up with some members of the Twin Lakes Conservation Club, and several other local volunteers, to remove some turtles from a local wetland that is to be filled in on Monday. Sad to say, we weren't able to find any of the snappers that were known to be at the site- hopefully they've already moved out to an alternative location to hiberate. However, we were able to get 50 painted turtles out of the pond! Lots of big females, which was especially cool. 18 turtles were found on Saturday morning, and another 32 today. Pretty interesting- walk around in waders until you see a turtle through the ice, then punch through with one hand and grab the turtle with the other. Most were concentrated in a small area where the deepest water was present. After things got stirred up, we were able to get a fair number from this spot just by sweeping nets back and forth. All of the turtles were released in a couple of nearby wetlands. Hopefully they'll do well there- has to be better odds than being buried by a bulldozer.

Frustrating though, that in 2004, we're still filling in wetlands in southern Ontario. VR news was on hand to film things today, and TVO came up on Saturday for a future Studio 2 episode.

Jeff Hathaway
Sciensational Sssnakes!!

[turtle]

Hi Jeff....Kudos to you and Jenny.

And yes it is sad that in this day and age...wetlands are still being filled in.

You made a difference.

Angie

[Linds]

That's awesome that the effort was successful. Sad that it had to be done in the first place... but nonetheless, it's wonderful to hear of such an effort to save some wildlife. It always saddens me everytime I drive by a place that was formely home to so much life, only to see it being overtaken by housing or other development :(