Hello everybody,
I'm finally out of school, and yesterday I was able to set free the two Blanding's turtles that my class at school head started. To check out my previous post on these turtles,
click here.
The two turtles, Cinnamon and Sugar, were about the size of a quarter when we received them, and they have grown so much over the past school year. Now, they each weigh around 75-85 grams, around the size of my fist! During the school year, my cousin, my close friend, and I spent our Friday afternoons with the turtles. We quickly became the 'turtle mommies' as we bonded with the turtles. Now, eight months after we first saw them, it was hard to say goodbye.
Cinnamon and Sugar were born in the Assabet River Fish and Wildlife Refuge, near Stowe, MA, and were sent to our school as part of the head start program. The goal of the program is to grow turtles in healthy environments so that when they are released in the wild, many of their predators are eliminated because the turtles are much bigger. The Blanding's Turtles were endangered at one point, and the turtles with only a 26% survival rate. The 110 turtles who were head started this year have an 80-90% survival rate- almost three times as high!
When we arrived at the refuge, we walked out to the mash area and stopped for a few minutes as the guide showed us two of the traps he had designed. They were used to keep track of turtles, and were made to keep snapping turtles out but let the smaller turtles in. There was a Painted Turtle in one of the traps, and he told us that people sometimes confuse the Blanding's and Painted Turtles. Painted Turtles have yellow stripes on their neck, whereas the underside of a Blanding's Turtle's neck is completely yellow. After setting the Painted Turtle back into the water, we walked down a little further to where we would be setting our turtles free. As the guide stepped out of the car, he had a box with him. He took the lid off, and I instantly knew who it was. "Sun?" I asked. He nodded, handing me the turtle. Sun was one of the two turtles I raised last year. He was so big when we set him free, that they wanted to put a tracker on him. We were able to look at a sheet of the size and weight of Sun over the past year. The guide told us that Sun was the biggest Blanding's Turtle of her age group.
After taking a ton of pictures, we weighed the turtles. We also recorded the carapace (top of the shell) length and width, plastron (underside of the shell) length and width as well as the height of the turtle. Then, with our last goodbyes, we set the turtles down into the marsh and watched them swim away. Good luck, Cinnamon and Sugar!
I am on my way the Acadia Institute of Oceanography in Seal Harbor, ME, near Bar Harbor. I will be spending the next two weeks participating in the AIO Intermediate program. I have never been there before, and I am so eager to learn more about fish, the ocean and being a marine biologist!
I've read that there will be labs, hiking, tide pooling, snorkeling, night walks by the shore and much, much more. I will be studying tide pool diversity, water samples, and some specimens we find! Cool, right?
I chose Acadia because it has so many great opportunities to learn about marine concepts, and it is located near the easternmost point of the US and looking right out onto the North Atlantic Ocean, there are sure to be some incredible marine environments all around me. Plus, every time I talk to someone who has gone to AIO, I get even more excited!
