The Bog Turtle

Globally, turtles are one of the most endangered groups of vertebrates on the planet, and North America’s turtle assemblage is no exception. Many species have declined significantly and are now threatened with extinction in the not so distant future. Life history strategies that rely on high adult survival and generally low egg and juvenile survival make turtles poorly suited to withstanding widespread environmental change. Eastern North America is home to one of the most diverse turtle faunas in the world, due in large part to the high number of freshwater turtle species inhabiting this region. This diverse group of turtles displays a wide variety of life histories, body sizes, colors, and preferred habitats.

Bog Turtles exemplify how multiple threats can come together to threaten persistence of a freshwater turtle species. Distributed in disjunct populations ranging from extreme northern Georgia to New York and Massachusetts, Bog Turtles are currently listed as Threatened on the U.S. Endangered Species List and as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Bog Turtles are also listed on CITES Appendix 1, which prohibits commercial international trade of the species. Despite these legal protections, populations have continued to decline in many places over the last several decades.

As their name suggests, Bog Turtles typically inhabit sphagnum bogs and marshy meadows with deep organic substrates that allow turtles to easily bury themselves in the mud. Surface water at these sites ranges from shallow to non-existent, depending on the location and time of year. In fact, some Bog Turtle wetlands hardly look like wetlands until you are standing knee deep in mud. These turtles spend a large portion of their life buried in the mud or tucked away in hibernacula for several months each year. Their dependence on shallow freshwater wetlands has made Bog Turtles particularly susceptible to habitat loss and alteration. Small wetlands are often directly destroyed by anthropogenic activities but can also be impacted by the removal of natural processes that created them originally. Once wetlands become less suitable, widespread development within their range often makes it difficult if not impossible for turtles to locate new, suitable wetlands.