The Turtle Manifesto

Here is the history, the who, the why and the how we came to found this not for profit organization for local turtle conservation.

The Turtle Imperative-Why The Hands Off Approach Is No Longer Viable

By now we’re all aware of the litany of threats plaguing local turtle

populations. Loss of, fragmentation and degradation of habitats, population

isolation and subsequent reduction in genetic diversity, collection for the pet

trade, proliferation of generalist predators that thrive in human altered

landscapes including dogs and cats, increasingly difficult road crossing challenges

from the aforementioned habitat fragmentation, even a lack of high profile

conservation status, the list is long and daunting. The very nature of these long-

lived creatures of habit works against them. Box turtles in particularly and all

other turtles to a lesser degree are highly territorial in the sense that they are

intimately connected to relatively small living areas. Within these areas they know

where to find food, shelter, hibernariums even mates without the need for

extensive and relatively dangerous searching and hunting. Relocation from these

safely familiar surroundings leaves the victim so confused and bewildered that

they often fall prey to their many predators and other threats or simply can’t re-

establish themselves quickly enough to stave off starvation or death from

exposure. In the pet trade, these symptoms are often manifested by the refusal to

eat or generally thrive in captivity, leading to both higher mortality and ever

greater pressures on wild populations for replacements.

The official, science-based answer to this situation has for years been

a logical and legal policy of what I call hands off. When you encounter a turtle

crossing the road, stop and carefully transport said turtle across the road in the

direction it was heading. Don’t try to relocate it to greener pastures down the

road and of course don’t even think of taking the poor soul home to show the kids

and thereby inflicting more harm on an already beleaguered wild population. In

most states, there is a list of threatened species that are illegal to possess and

there are relatively low limits on total number of wild or pet turtles you can own

(in N.C. where I live it is 5). Other states even require permits and internal scan

tags on your pets to insure they are of captive origin! Nationwide, laws were

passed in 1975 to prevent the sale of turtles smaller than 4 inches thereby

simultaneously protecting children and their families from the threat of

salmonella while reducing the pet collection pressures on wild populations.

This effectively passed the conservation baton to research facilities, nature centers,

wildlife departments, the food and drug administration, zoos, universities and

other official institutions for the monitoring, bolstering and regulation

enforcement of both the turtle pet trade and wild turtle populations. Protected

areas such as parks, zoos, nature preserves, etc. would provide the basis for

scientific research and create reservoirs of healthy genetically diverse turtle

populations as a hedge against habitat losses in an environment where predators

could be kept in check. Turtles had entered the modern era of conservation

whereby they would be generally protected from human impacts and left to

maintain their populations as naturally as possible; a methodology that, for the

most part, aptly characterizes how we currently manage most of our wildlife

populations in general.

This brings me to the central thesis mentioned in the title…namely why I feel the hands off policy is flawed and needs to be reviewed and revised to

better reflect the local and national and, in fact, global needs of inland turtles. Let

me make it clear upfront, that my interest and expertise on this subject is

basically as a concerned citizen with minimal scientific background. In addition I

have not included citations for studies and other information referenced partially

because im lazy and partially because I expect the first thing an interested reader

will do is start delving into the subject on their own, even if it is just to fact check

me ! With that firmly in mind, let me now present my case for change despite the

fact that many much more erudite and more professionally involved minds may

disagree entirely with my conclusions.

Loss of habitat and its attendant problems loom large as the number one

problem facing not only turtles but most wildlife populations worldwide.

However, I believe at least in America, turtles face a uniquely challenging form of

habitat loss due to fragmentation of their environments. As creatures unable to

safely or physically travel great distances from their local habitats, it is vitally

important what happens on the micro-scale to their specific locale. Obviously, this

applies to an extreme degree to land-based box turtles but it is no small matter

for semi-aquatic and aquatic turtles as well. When areas are clear cut or wetlands

drained or roads constructed or farm fields expanded or developments move in

unlike other forms of wildlife, turtles have nowhere to go.

All of these changes in addition provide a field day for highly mobile predators of all types including high speed vehicular traffic. When you feel that sickening thunk as you fail to miss the turtle in the road you’ve just wiped out a creature who may be older than you and very often is a female searching for a place to deposit her eggs.

Again, box turtles are even more vulnerable since the road is actually splitting up their home

territory. Thus they have to brave that scary crossing not just once in a lifetime

but over and over and over. Turtle losses of this variety cannot be made up by

population reservoirs elsewhere because there is no such thing as wildlife

corridors for roving bands of turtles to utilize.

The problem of population isolation follows on the heels of fragmentation.

Suddenly, the patch of woods or pond or stream or even reservoir that are left

behind, hemmed in by fields or highway embankments or neighborhoods or clear

cuts is completely removed from contact with other members of its species. Now,

the habitat has been reduced to a series of genetically isolated islands inevitably

doomed to gradual disentegration and failure without some form of outside

intervention. Of course, the raccoons and opossums and foxes and hawks and

owls and dogs and cats and coyotes thrive in such circumstances, easily moving

from island to island in search of another turtle or turtle egg snack.

So just how prevalent is this dreary scenario ? Afterall, the American human

population is concentrating more and more in larger cities leaving our rural areas

presumably more amenable to the propagation of wildlife. Here’s where my own

personal experience comes into play. Most of my life I’ve spent outside both

working and playing in relatively rural environments with a keen interest in turtles

and other wildlife. For the last 20+ years I’ve lived in and worked as a materials

delivery driver in Chatham county North Carolina. This area is rapidly transitioning

from almost exclusively rural 20 years ago to a split personality of development in

the north and east and continued rural presence in the south and west. The

destruction wrought by development in all its many forms is relatively self-evident

i.e. bulldozers leave nobody and nothing untouched. Its when I began to

investigate the wide open spaces of rural Chatham county that I became truly

alarmed. First off, when you travel the incredibly numerous backroads and farm

roads of rural N.C. you begin to wonder first why do so many of these roads exist

and then, secondly, is there any patch of ground that doesn’t have a road

nearby?!

This of course is bad news for slow-moving turtles, particularly females

on their way to lay eggs. Then, through a combination of physical ground-

truthing and google earth searches, I discovered that all those wide open spaces

are anything but where turtles are concerned. Facades of trees give way to vast

agricultural fields or clear cuts. Waterways, ponds, lakes and even large reservoirs

are strait-jacketed by little ribbons of trees backed up by houses and barns and

agricultural fields and brushland from older clear cuts and open red clay from new

clear cuts and even vast areas of pasturage. For comparison, box turtles preferred

habitat is moist upland deciduous forest followed by bottomland forest and finally

riparian ways. These chopped up, altered landscapes, though rural in orientation,

offer very little in the way of quality turtle habitat. For aquatic turtles, these areas

are equally unsuited. Trapped in isolated water features sullied with both

agricultural and erosional runoff, unable to safely travel to lay eggs, they too

become victims of isolation and the many predators that thrive in these altered

landscapes.

Two personal experiences over time, one small scale and the other on a

much larger scale have truly brought home to me the crucial relevance of these

observations. My family moved to rural Chatham county to build our house in the

woods from nearby Cary, N.C. in 1997. We lived in a travel trailer on what was

then 500 empty acres of deciduous forest, several large streams and hills with a

long since abandoned overgrown farmhouse from 1900 at its center. The

alternative minded couple next door had purchased the property with the

intention of inviting approximately 25 residents to build houses while preserving

the natural character of the forest as much as possible through environmentally

restrictive covenants. In other words, I moved into prime box turtle habitat and

since we physically built our small house and modest gardens ourselves and our

neighbors have generally adhered more or less to the spirit of the covenants, this

habitat is still primarily intact. Over the years, I annually encounter box turtles on

my personal ten acres of forest many times and I have augmented the population

on occasion with errant turtles from clear cuts and farm machinery. And the

point…quite simply most studies find that to have a viable population requires

roughly 10-12 box turtles per acre primarily because they find mates by sight. I

can categorically state that there are not 100 box turtles whose territories

routinely overlap my ten acres even with the ones I have added…hence, my

“prime box turtle habitat” lacks enough turtles to be a viable population. Oh, and

I failed to mention earlier that my 10 acres backs up to the single largest empty

tract of land left in Chatham county, approximately 1500 roadless acres. Yet,

despite being next door to a vast forested reservoir, my 10 acres is apparently not

part of a resilient population. And on a somewhat sad note, that 1500 acre tract is

currently in the process of being developed.

Which leads me to my much larger scale experience. Again, starting in the

1990’s, as an avid flatwater kayaker, I spent a lot of time on the Shearon Harris

reservoir in eastern Chatham county. The reservoir is the cooling water for the

nuclear power plant of the same name and as such its water levels are kept

relatively constant and steady. In addition, the nuclear plant was located in a vast

area of empty rural land, surrounded by forest and presumably offering a certain

level of protection for the integrity of its critical watershed.

The lake is famous for a number of interrelated features: a large wetland at

its eastern end filled with vast fields of lotus, white lilly and hydrilla that are so

dense they filter the water to the point of 6 ft or more of clarity, a virtually

unknown spectacle in the muddy waters of the south; and the inhabitants of

those clear water weed beds…trophy-sized largemouth bass and endless flocks of

ducks. For me, a non-fisher or hunter, it was the big draw of clear water to watch

aquatic creatures and of course the prolific numbers of turtles, particularly

painted turtles of every size and abandon. At the fartherest reaches of the

wetlands I even encountered the elusive and shy spotted turtle, a key indicator of

quality habitat with clean water and minimal human disturbance. This remained a

seemingly protected environment full of all manner of life for decades. However,

my available time for kayaking waned for a number of years and it wasn’t until my

daughter moved back to our area and desired to go kayaking with her friends that

I began to routinely see Shearon Harris Reservoir again. Gone were the vast beds

of hydrilla and emergent plants. Not only were the turtle populations a shadow of

their former selves but the bass and the ducks and even the beaver populations

had all but been eliminated or dispersed. In their place were a series of tiny

circular fences containing small quantities of anemic-looking lotus plants and

nothing but opaque open waters and neglected beaver lodges. Areas that had

formerly been so thick with vegetation that a kayak had to follow beaver channels

to enter them were now nothing but shallow plowed up mudflats. What had

happened, where did it all go?

The answer to that question aptly sums up the complexities facing our

human controlled ecosystems and all the denizens that depend on their

healthiness for survival, including my precious turtles. In 1983 Harris Lake reached

full water capacity and the first reports of submerged hydrilla beds occurred in

1988. By the 2000s, hydrilla covered 1000 or more acres primarily along deeper

channels in the eastern ends of the lake where it was bracketed by even larger

beds of native emergent plants. By this point the relatively small 4100 acre

reservoir consistently rated in the top five best bass fishing locations in the nation

and routinely hosted large professional tournaments despite experiencing very

high fishing pressures from the nearby rapidly growing Raleigh and Cary urban

areas. In addition, Harris Lake’s vast flocks of ducks fueled a hunting venue that

was considered the most likely place in the state outside of North Carolina’s

migratory coastal areas to allow a hunter to bag their limit.

This sportspersons paradise was of course hugely beneficial for turtles,

beavers and all the other species that depend on the fecundity of healthy

wetlands. The wetland’s prolific fertility relied heavily on the non-native invasive

hydrilla which provided vast amounts of food and cover for creatures large and

small. Just as importantly the hydrilla beds served as a gigantic biological water

filter that insured clean clear water throughout the habitat which in turn helped

spur the extravagant growth of the vast emergent beds.

There were, unfortunately two possibly disastrous aspects to hydrillas

invasive nature associated with the lake, one being the more minor problem of

obstructing the power plants intakes and the by far more likely and damaging

threat of its spread into the cape fear river system below the lakes dam. To

combat these problems, North Carolina State University scientists were permitted

to test various herbicides in the lake for the control of hydrilla, sporadically at first

but in a more concerted effort from 2008 onward. A 2015 vegetative survey

conducted by the North Carolina Wildlife Commission still found 942 acres of

hydrilla present in the lake. By September 2018 the spraying efforts had reduced

the hydrilla to 232 acres of coverage. Sensing a chance to eliminate the last

pocket of hydrilla threat once and for all, the NCWC elected in 2018 to release

1500 sterile grass carp and they followed in 2019 with another 2,500 more. These

voracious herbivores have a strong preference for hydrilla and live ten years or

more.

This insures continued predation of the hydrilla tuber banks that can

continue to sprout new plants for 6-8 years due to the avid excavation efforts of

the long-lived carp. And indeed, subsequent plant surveys have found no trace of

hydrilla to this day. Unfortunately, they also find virtually no trace of the thick

native emergent plant beds that covered 60% of the shoreline in the 2015

vegetative survey either. The grass carp prefer hydrilla but once it was gone they

happily mowed down native plants as well leaving those aforementioned plowed

up mudflats in their wake. In addition, the forests surrounding the lake and its

watershed were virtually completely clear cut in the last decade leading to a

major growth in silt and pollution load even as the biological filter service the

dense beds of hydrilla provided was eliminated.

The results have been devastating to the wetland ecosystem. In addition to

the earlier mentioned effects the wetland banks are suffering major erosion from

the exposure to wave action further adding to the waters turbidity. Although

electro fishing surveys suggest less of a decline in bass numbers and more of a

dispersal into widely spaced deep water areas, the odds of their population

escaping unscathed by the loss of such a large fertile biomass-filled habitat seems

highly unlikely. Whatever the case, Harris Lake doesn’t host major tournaments

anymore despite being declared as recently as 2017 by bassmaster magazine to

be the best bass fishing destination in the southeast and in the top four in the

nation. Consequently, angler threads on the internet no longer recommend Harris

Lake as a good fishing destination. Duck hunters meanwhile, are advised to look

elsewhere if they actually want to see any ducks. Whats left of the turtle

populations are literally crammed into a handful of larger coves where a small

amount of carp inedible vegetation holds sway. And the poor beavers not only

lost protection and food supply they were also simultaneously hit with the

opening of a new trapping and hunting season and their numbers have very

visibly declined. The little circular fenced in areas are the bare beginnings of

efforts to correct this ecosystem collapse by protecting founder colonies of native

plants but they face a very steep uphill battle. Meanwhile ducks can fly elsewhere

and fish can move to deeper waters but my slow to reproduce and increasingly

vulnerable to predation turtles can only crowd more closely together into less

than ideal habitat…..and the surrounding shores areas are littered with their

empty shells.

These two personal experiences combined with a lifetime of turtle

watching in rural habitats has led me to a number of surprising conclusions :

Local turtle populations face insurmountable odds to overcome without

outside intervention.

To maintain genetic diversity and viability in the already existing isolated

and fragmented habitats will require direct human assistance.

Rural areas can provide perhaps marginally better habitats for turtles than

their suburban counterparts, but fall far short of reliably fostering

functional turtle populations.

Actually viable turtle populations are few and far between.

Large reservoirs of protected turtles are not able to spread out across the

landscape to support other populations or create new pockets of

populations without human help.

Turtles are uniquely vulnerable to well-meaning human efforts to help

them or human manipulations to the greater eco-systems that they depend

on.

It is infinitely easier to protect and preserve an existing habitat than it is to

rejuvenate or create a new one.

By now I’m sure you have caught my drift. I believe humans have created

an untenable environment in my local area for the long term survival of turtles. I

further adhere to the idea of locally aggressive human intervention as the only

way to cope with this situation. The hands off approach only results in shrinking

populations, habitats devoid of turtles, falling genetic diversity, increased

vulnerability to predators and ever greater pressures on wild populations.

Ironically, even the seemingly helpful 4 inch rule meant that collection pressures

shifted from hatchlings, 80-90 % of who don’t survive the first year of life in the

wild, to the breeding population of young adult turtles, a much smaller and much

more essential part of the overall population.

The professional institutions charged with chelonian population

preservation are hardly capable of attending to the immediate needs of their own

generally small-scale operations or are giant umbrella organizations dealing with

many pressing wildlife-related problems of which turtles represent a tiny, low

profile issue. This brings up yet another problem specifically for inland

turtles…image. Ask the average nature lover about endangered and threatened

turtles and almost assuredly they will cite the plight of sea turtles, the rock stars

of chelonians. Afterall, they are incredibly challenged as well and rightfully receive

a great deal of publicity and public resources. On the flip side, people see aquatic

turtles on every log at the lake and see lots of box turtles crossing the roads or on

woodland trails after it rains but how many ever see a sea turtle anywhere but on

film? Rarity and unfamiliarity breeds concern about a species but commonness

does just the opposite. This contributes to a major flaw in hands off conservation,

particularly with once abundant species…we tend to wait to aggressively

intervene until a species population has dropped so low that to resurrect the

population is monumentally difficult or even impossible. I am convinced that in

my admittedly limited experience with local rural areas, that day is not long away

if not already here. Consequently, far off conservation and preservation successes

while being overall vitally important will not be enough to counteract the massive

losses that will be experienced in rural areas.

Here are a few real world examples that aptly illustrate the limitations and

the possibilities involved in the various approaches to turtle conservation. In

2017, Cleveland Museum of Natural History celebrated the culmination of their

multi-institutional effort to propagate a new breeding colony of spotted turtles in

Ohio. Over a multi-year period, employees of the museum carefully raised a

group of spotted turtles, monitoring their every move, minimizing human contact,

etc. A protected preserve was selected, predators were trapped and relocated, a

brand new pond was dug and bits and pieces of it were brought back to the

captives tank to accustom them to the smell of their soon-to-be new home. After

being internally tagged, they were gradually acclimatized to their new pond…all

six of them. Now, while that sounds like a lot of effort for a small return, it is true

that such a carefully managed group could potentially beget hundreds of offspring

over the many years to come and create a vibrant protected colony for the

foreseeable future.

Now, contrast this with a turtle fancier I encountered on a turtle chat

group. When a chat member asked about keeping spotted turtles as pets this

person volunteered that they had kept a small breeding population in the early

2000’s with great success. From 5 turtles he had raised more then 60 hatchlings

to adulthood and returned most of them to the marsh their parents had

originated from. Further, he notched their scutes and has encountered his former

captives in the years since their release. I personally have run across several other

private turtle enthusiast that have done similar work with their local turtle

populations.

I suspect you see where Im going with this. In most parts of the country,

the Cleveland effort would be applauded and legally and philosophically

sanctioned, whereas the private breeders would be excoriated for unsafe

population mixing and illegal actions. And yet…Ohio’s rural turtle populations

didn’t benefit one whit from the Cleveland effort, but the rural populations

definitely did benefit from the private breeders actions as they put larger

numbers of turtles back into the general population for far less commitments of

resources.

So here is what Im advocating…I bet you never thought you would get here

did you?! The time of reckoning is fast approaching for turtles in rural areas and

we need to be availing ourselves of every possible resource we can find. As it

stands, concerned citizens, turtle enthusiast, turtle breeders, pet owners,

landowners, private individuals are generally legally prevented from participating

in this important work even though they are by far best situated to provide the

help so desperately needed in rural areas. We simply have to eliminate the

confusing incoherent patchwork maze of rules and regulations that do not allow

dedicated amateurs to participate in saving local turtle populations but are okay

with those same individuals or other private citizens capturing turtles for table

fare. The official mantra that indiscriminate meddling in wild turtle populations is

prohibited because it could introduce diseases and bad genetic traits and

parasites and lead to premature death in donor turtles hardly holds water in the

face of the slow moving catastrophe that rural turtle populations are facing. If

local people use local stocks rather than the captive bred turtles they are

currently restricted to then the risks to wild stocks drop dramatically, and point of

fact, in the seventh hour of population collapse a certain level of gamble and risk

is inevitable. Besides what have we got to lose..we no longer have the luxury to

do otherwise.

Okay, so this all sounds a little alarmist, perhaps a little overblown and

quite frankly perhaps not totally applicable all across the country. Where’s the

hard data, the pertinent studies, the scientific analysis beyond google earth and

observational limitations? You might could dig up a lot of this scientific

information if you are so inclined but I am not. Why? Because I possess one final

crucial detail that literally slashes right across all the objections raised or imagined

by naysayers be they expert, amateur, private citizen, professional or what have

you….and it all comes down to global warming, the scourge of the 21 st century!

Turtle sex ratios in the nest are temperature dependent, the higher the

temperatures, the fewer males are produced. Past a certain threshold, no males

are produced at all. Just as bad, wide swings in temperature highs and lows also

produce only females. Of course, temperature extremes and higher overall

temperatures are exactly what global warming is promising us and in spades as

we get further into the century. Numerous studies estimate in particularly

sensitive turtle species that by mid-century production of males will all but cease

at current observable rates.

Scary stuff for the future right?! Wrong!! Remember that I noted a

surprising lack of painted turtles when I returned in recent years to the Shearon

Harris reservoir, whereas that species had earlier been found there in great

abundance. It turns out that painted turtles eggs are particularly sensitive to heat

influenced sex ratios, enough so that throughout much of their range population

sex ratios are already being skewed in wild populations to the point of affecting

overall reproduction. North America’s most populous and naturally widespread

turtles are rapidly becoming neither and this is even being reflected in my own

backyard. When I was growing up in N.C. painted turtles were the quintessential

aquatic turtle, festooning every log and rock in extravagant numbers in any body

of slow moving water…now I am hard pressed to find one anywhere in my neck of

the woods. While I don’t have the hard evidence to blame all their losses on

reproductive failures, it is difficult to explain their sudden disappearance

throughout their range without some impact from this problem…and it can only

get worse since the six hottest years on record are the last six years !

So just in case you think turtle populations can survive on their own against

their many other threats, I challenge you to explain how they can deal with this

global catastrophe. Nothing short of hordes of breeders producing surplus males

and injecting them by any and all means into populations far and wide stand a

chance of ameliorating this dire near future situation, and as I’ve expressed ad

nauseum, you know where I think we can get those breeders.

Have I convinced you? Truth is it doesn’t matter, because I’ve convinced

myself..your approval would simply be icing on the cake. Im sure that like many

other interested private citizens, I started out with a vague idea of helping out

turtle populations as a pretty simple concept only to discover a morass of

complications both legal and philosophical blocking the way. Organizing my

thoughts in a coherent way has enabled me to disentangle this morass and reach

the conclusion that now is the time to act, tomorrow is too late and legal or

otherwise, turtles are in dire need of our physical help in direct contrast to the

official hands off policies of recent times. Thus I have accomplished my goal to understand what needs to be done and what I, as an individual, can do.