Kiley BriggsViews:
Common Injuries Among Wood Turtles
When I first came across a Wood Turtle nicknamed “Chippy”, she was already missing a foot. Later that summer, she was nicked by haying equipment and lost a few inches from the edge of her shell. A literal chip on her shoulder, and the origin of her name. She was also in the field the next time it was mowed. She survived that, too. Chippy was part of a radio telemetry study, which showed she rarely leaves the field in the summer. Her injuries reflect the risks turtles face from spending so much time on land, especially from heavy machinery and cars.
Another nearby turtle, who we nicknamed “Cracky”, has a large gash on her shell. That injury, possibly caused by tilling equipment, could be decades old. A short distance downstream, there is another turtle with a chunk missing from her side, and a juvenile with no front legs who gets by with just enough of a stump to move in water.
Such injuries are common among Wood Turtles. Raccoons, which are more abundant due to human activity, account for many of the limb injuries. Cars, tractors, and dogs are common sources of shell trauma. Although Wood Turtles can survive severe injuries, they often don’t. We don’t really know what percentage of turtles do survive. If they live, they can carry the scars for decades, giving people many chances to see them. The same is not true for those that don’t survive. If you find a turtle with an old injury that is already healed, it is probably best to leave it be. If you find turtles with fresh injuries, though, please seek input from your state wildlife agency or a licensed wildlife rehabilitator about what to do.
Helping Turtles like Chippy
So, what can we do to help a turtle like Chippy? If she stays in her field, she will likely die there at a young age. Could we move her to a safer place? That doesn’t work too well for Wood Turtles, who have strong homing instincts and are unlikely to stay where they are put. In their potentially miles long quest to return home or settle down somewhere new they may cross many roads or encounter other hazards.
Someone once asked if we could take Chippy into captivity for her safety. That raises some big quality of life concerns when you compare a few good years in the wild to decades in a glass tank. Instead, what if we could work with the farmer to make the field safer? While farms can be very dangerous places for Wood Turtles, they also represent some of the greatest opportunities to protect the species. And farmers are among the strongest allies in efforts to restore Wood Turtle habitat.
One helpful measure is to establish a “riparian buffer”—a strip of trees and shrubs between fields and streams. This buffer, which minimizes turtle encounters with machinery, can be a crucial step. If fields near turtle habitats need to be mowed or tilled between spring and fall, raising blades to six inches or using sickle-bar mowers can also reduce the risk to turtles.
There are lots of other ways to make farms safer for Wood Turtles, which you can read about here. Many of those practices come at a cost to farmers, either in terms of expense or reduced revenue. Thankfully, farmers can often receive financial incentives and reimbursement through state and federal programs. And all these programs are voluntary, often resulting in win-win scenarios for both turtles and farmers.
For instance, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) pays farmers annual rental fees for each acre of buffer they establish and funds habitat restoration within the buffer. Farm Bill programs run by the Natural Resources Conservation Service also offer incentives to restore habitat for wildlife and protect water quality. In some states, if a farmer’s land is in a key Wood Turtle area, there’s likely a program to fund the necessary habitat restoration.
Our Approach to Saving Wood Turtles on Working Lands
That’s how we’re helping Chippy. Her farm has done conservation work before, and when state biologists learned that Chippy’s field is in a priority Wood Turtle area, they proposed conserving the entire field. The farmer seems open to this; the field isn’t particularly good for hay, so getting paid not to mow it is a good deal for both him and the turtles. It isn’t a done deal yet, but I am optimistic that Chippy may never face the danger of a tractor again.
We can’t save every Wood Turtle, but focusing efforts on the most critical habitats makes a greater impact by protecting populations, not just individual turtles. This approach to saving Wood Turtles on working lands ensures habitat restoration has the greatest benefit to the species. For example, if we spent millions of dollars doing restoration projects scattered randomly across an entire state, we might not make a big difference for a single population of Wood Turtles. But if we spend the same amount of money in a few focal areas, we can ensure the future of Wood Turtles in those places.
Our approach to Wood Turtle conservation does just that. Across the Northeast, biologists have spent nearly 20 years figuring out where those critical sites are. There are also big gaps in that data. That is why we stepped into data-deficient parts of New York and New England to monitor Wood Turtle populations. Once we identify critical areas for Wood Turtle conservation, we do outreach to farmers for conservation programs that can fund crucial habitat restoration. Field by field, some of the most important places for Wood Turtles are becoming safer for the species. Chippy is very lucky to live on a farm that is in one of those important places.
