Catch and release program helps turtles win the race

MARION — A summer-long conservation project culminated with interns from the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance gently burying three baby diamondback terrapin turtles in the sand on Friday, Aug. 30, which served as a final effort to protect the infants as they settle in for a long winter.

The alliance’s team, which consists of over 40 interns, spends most of the year working with adult diamondback terrapins. However, from June to early September, their focus shifts to  working with hatchlings. 

Climate change, building developments, and almost being hunted to extinction have negatively impacted the diamondback terrapin population. 

“Human development attracts a lot of predators that they wouldn't ordinarily. The predators dig up their nests, and bring a lot of raccoons [and] foxes,” said Kevin Kangiser, an intern from Bridgewater.

The project begins with the interns going out in early June at the beginning nesting season to look for diamondback terrapin nests.

“We’re out looking for turtles or disturbances in the sand to find where they lay their nests,” Kangiser said. “They’ll come up out of the marsh, usually around high tide because … they want to get up somewhere dry to nest.”

When the team finds a nest, they capture it, take measurements, tag the turtles and then record the nest location.

“We put a chicken wire mesh over their nests to protect them from predators, and we’ll mark the GPS location,” said Kangiser.

High risk nests are placed into buckets and brought back to the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance’s office where they are hatched, measured, weighed and checked for abnormalities.

Soon, the turtles are returned to specific release or original nesting sites, and buried by the interns where they will brumate, hibernate, for the winter. 

The hatchlings will spend the rest of fall and winter underground, relying on the nutrients from their yolk sack before coming above ground in the spring to feed on marshland insects. 

Grace Santos, an intern from Acushnet, said they need to be careful handling the turtles, which are often only hours or days old.

“[Their] shells are not hard, they're still very pliable, like a baby,” she said.

The data the interns gather is then used for diamondback terrapin conservation efforts.

“Everything is recorded three, four, six, seven, or nine times,” said Kangiser.

The diamondback terrapin is a federally threatened turtle species, which means the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance must follow regulations when working.

“A lot of it is paperwork. It’s making sure that we mark and label and tag every single turtle living or dead that we find,” Santos said. “That's really important.”

According to Santos, some of the turtles hatched prematurely this year at around 50 days instead of the average 65 to 70 day range.

She added that they are unsure if the premature hatches are “due to the warmer weather, climate change or if it was just marked wrong.”

Kangiser noted that the turtles and their habitats are sensitive and said that “it's really important that we don't disturb the nests, but if we do, we have to relocate them, because it makes it really easy for predators to find them.”

As temperatures begin to drop, fewer turtles are hatching, which means the New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance’s season of monitoring the diamondback terrapins is winding down.

Turtle conservation research will continue through the year as a few classrooms raise hatchlings while the rest will be buried for brumation.

Carol “Krill” Carson, the president of New England Coastal Wildlife Alliance, emphasized their motto that “every animal counts” and they seek to embody this saying in their conservation work.