This wrinkled ol’ pal — with bright eyes, a colorful shell and a calm demeanor — is becoming increasingly rare. A huge study in North Carolina plans to track box turtles for 100 years to learn how to best protect them.
This is one of the best-documented centenarian box turtles, found in 2002 with markings on its shell made in 1921 by a naturalist who had judged it to be at least 20.This is one of the best-documented centenarian box turtles, found in 2002 with markings on its shell made in 1921 by a naturalist who had judged it to be at least 20."It's a lifespan similar to a human lifespan," says Somers."Humans can live to be a hundred years old easily, if conditions are right.
guilty to gathering and selling at least 722 box turtles, plus 125 other turtles, for an estimated $121,000.population declines. But those studies have looked at relatively small geographic areas, like a single wildlife refuge, that might not reflect broader trends. And across huge swaths of box turtles' natural range, says Dodd, no one has been paying attention at all.
"Now, I've lived in my house for 37 years. I've never seen this box turtle before," he says."You wonder how many others are walking around our area, and we just don't know how they go about their lives."once found 8 box turtles on a rainy, late-summer day. Over the last decade, he's developed an uncanny ability to perceive them despite their ability to blend in with the yellow and brown leaves on the forest floor.
"It recently rained and you have a lot of mushrooms growing, and that's one of their preferred food items," says Roe."They should be out and active." Years ago, when Roe first heard Somers talking about her plans for a century-long, state-wide study, he was intrigued but skeptical."I really doubted how long-term we could carry it on for," he says. But then he went to the first training meeting for volunteers and saw their enthusiasm."That convinced me otherwise. I thought that this project does have a chance." Now he sports a T-shirt with the project's logo and the caption,"10 down, 90 to go.
"Turtles themselves don't know where these borders are," says Roe."They cross over them all the time, and get themselves into threatening situations like crossing roads or walking into people's backyards."slowly moves through the woods, holding an antenna that receives radio signals."With this, we can actually follow the beeps to a turtle," she explains.
"People don't often think about them being in wetlands or even, like, on the edges of rivers. I've found box turtles congregated in little muddy patches right on the edge of a swift, large river," says Graeter."We find them in springs, down in little streams. I really think the water component is important."
The one exception is if a box turtle is spotted as it tries to cross a road. Helping it across, if that's a safe thing to attempt in traffic, can keep it from becoming roadkill.At the arboretum, Henninger and Graeter follow radio transmitter beeps to an area planted with tall grasses. Bockhahn hunts through the mounds of grass and finds a female box turtle with a thin antenna sticking up from a small device plastered to her shell.
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