What's Happening to the Turtles?

Painted Turtle
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia and US_BLM_painted_turtle_picta_pic2.jpg

The biggest local news story of the past week was the breach of the Brown Bridge Dam located in southern Grand Traverse County. Along with the damage to homes and flooding threats to roads and bridges, the breach reduced the Boardman Pond’s water level by three feet, exposing fish and turtles living in the waters.

Days after the breach, the local television station showed a segment where wildlife biologists from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources sought out and captured painted and snapping turtles from the dewatered pond in an attempt to rescue as many possible. Turtles burrow into the pond’s bottom during their winter hibernation using the layer of water and ice above their burrows as insulation.  With the winter season now approaching, the dried pond would not adequately protect the turtles, exposing them to freezing and death over the winter.

Turtles hold a special fascination for people. As one of the few survivors of the prehistoric dinosaur era, the turtle has changed little over the millennium. In Michigan, we have ten species of turtles:  Blanding's Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii) , Common Map Turtle (Graptemys geographica) , Common Musk Turtle (Sternotherus odoratus) , Common Snapping Turtle (Chelydra serpentina) , Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) ,Painted Turtle (Chrysemys picta), Red-eared Slider (Trachemys scripta elegans), Spiny Soft-shell Turtle (Apalone spinifera spinifera), Spotted Turtle (Clemmys guttata)  and Wood Turtle (Clemmys insculpta). None of the Michigan species are considered endangered; but as with all wildlife should not be removed from their native environment to be taken as pets.

If you ask any child to describe a turtle, the first characteristic they would mention is the shell. The shell serves as a unique defensive system, a two part self-contained armor in which the turtle can pull in its head and legs for protection. The upper shell, known as a carapace can come in two forms: a hard helmet-shape shell found in land-living turtles and used as protection or a flat, soft skin-like carapace for turtles that live their lives exclusively in water. Like the carapace, the lower shell or plastron’s shape can also be adapted to allow ease in walking or as a hard protective barrier.

Most turtles are omnivores meaning that they can eat both meat and vegetation. But the shape of the turtle’s mouth has adapted to the primary type of food it consumes. Some turtles have a hook mouth that can be used to shred flesh while other has a wide, flat mouth that is better for gnashing vegetation.

In the week since the dam breach, it has been difficult to get updates on the status of the wildlife impacted by the draw down. As with all incidents of this type, the media focus has been primarily on the people displaced by the flooding and the damage to personal property. Emergency efforts have been targeted on securing the breach and assisting displaced families. Except for the one brief news story, little has been said about efforts to assist wildlife or how many animals died as a result of the breach. I will write again on this story, when more information is known.