Year of the Turtle News No
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Year of the Turtle News No. 10 October 2011 Basking in the Wonder of Turtles www.YearoftheTurtle.org The Orianne Society’s Commitment to Turtle Conservation by Christina M. Castellano, Director, Turtle Conservation Initiative, The Orianne Society The Orianne Society was established in 2008 for the conservation of the Eastern Indigo Snake (Drymarchon couperi) in the southeastern United States. Since its inception, however, it has expanded its mission to the conservation of threatened reptiles and amphibians worldwide. Most recently, the Society created the Turtle Conservation Initiative (TCI) in response to the extinction crisis that is threatening the survival of more than half of the world’s turtle species. The vision of the TCI is healthy and sustainable populations of turtles in the wild, living alongside human societies that value them. The TCI will include a diversity of programs that promote science-driven conservation action for turtles by focusing on six key action areas: applied science, community-based conservation, human-wildlife conflict, Radiated Tortoise (Astrochelys radiata) of environmental education, professional development, and public Madagascar, a focus of the Orianne Society’s Turtle Conservation Initiative. Photo by Christina awareness. Orianne Society continues on p. 4 Castellano. Turtle Conservancy / John L. Behler Chelonian by A. Ross Kiester1, Eric V. Goode, Center: Who We Are and What We Do and Maximilian S. Maurer Madagascar in the late 1960s by Robert Baudy. Many of these wild- caught animals are now likely over 100 years old and represent the founding Turtle Conservancy continues on p. 6 Inside: page Year of the Turtle Partners 2 The Turtle Conservancy is an It is a new organization that builds Ask the Experts 3 international organization dedicated on the conservation efforts of many Turtles in the News 5 to the conservation and enhancement people, most notably John Behler. of turtles and tortoises around the In 1979, the Bronx Zoo (New York Interview with Roy Averill-Murray 9 world. It undertakes conservation Zoological Society) established a herd Desert Tortoise Recovery Plan 10 both in the native habitats of of Radiated Tortoises (Astrochelys Memorials 11 endangered species and through radiata) on St. Catherines Island, SE PARC Regional Spotlight 12 captive breeding of species that are Georgia. These tortoises had been Upcoming Events 13 under extreme pressure in the wild. brought to the United States from “Behold the turtle. He makes progress when his neck is out.” — James Bryant Conant (1893-1978), educator and scientist Year of the Turtle News No. 10, October 2011, p. 2 Get Your October Calendar Jamie Burchill photographed this basking Escambia Map Turtle (Graptemys ernsti) on September 11, 2011 along the Conecuh River in Pike County, Alabama. Get a better look at this month’s winner and runner-up by downloading your calendar at parcplace. org/images/stories/YOT/YearoftheTurtleCalendarOctober.pdf And it’s STILL not too late to enter the 2011 Calendar Photo Contest! We are accepting entries all year long. Give us your best shot! For more information and for entry details, please visit www. parcplace.org/news-a-events/224.html. USA Turtle Mapping Project: ERRATUM The email address for USA Turtle Mapping Project data is: [email protected] We apologize that our website has had an incorrect address listed – inadvertently, it lacked the year. We always reply to confirm receipt of data. So if you did not get a confirmation reply or if you are unsure whether or not your data were transmitted correctly, please go ahead and resend it to the gmail address above. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you. And effusive thanks to Mary V. Orr (Wildlife Biologist, US Forest Service, Santa Fe National Forest, New Mexico) for telling us about this problem! Thanks also to JD Willson (Virginia Tech) for being our awesome webmaster, and correcting the typo. Questions can be directed to Dede Olson: [email protected] Year of the Turtle Collaborating Partners The Year of the Turtle Planning Team is pleased to welcome the following organizations to our growing list of collaborating partners: The Susquehannock Wildlife Society exists to protect wildlife. Through outreach and partnerships with other groups we can accomplish our goal to salvage nature’s own beauty and keep wildlife free and safe in the wild. We seek to build a place for people to enjoy, learn, and talk about wildlife and a centralized home to rehabilitate and provide refuge for species in need. Whether it is through public education, conservation efforts, rescue, or legislation, we will stand as a helping hand and voice for wildlife. www.susquehannockwildlife.org The Turtle Rescue League is a non-profit organization based in New England that is committed to the welfare of all turtle species. Our mission is to keep turtles a part of the future and not a thing of the past. We accomplish this through education, conservation, rehabilitation, and adoption programs. The Turtle Rescue League has a dedicated staff and a membership of volunteers from across the country. www.turtlerescueleague.com Our full list of partners can be found at www.parcplace.org/news-a-events/year-of-the-turtle/237.html. If you are interested in contributing to the Year of the Turtle efforts, please send an email to [email protected] with a brief description of your organization and its efforts. Year of the Turtle News No. 10, October 2011, p. 3 Introducing the 2012 Year of the Lizard Logo Contest! In 2012, PARC will launch our Year Logo Requirements: There are no e-mail, but hang on to your high- of the Lizard awareness campaign to restrictions on the 2012 Year of the resolution or vector art files! If you raise the profile of lizard conservation Lizard logo in terms of colors, shape, win, we will ask you to send them needs—stay tuned for more details! or dimensions, but we ask that the to us.) We now seek submissions for a logo bear the text “2012 Year of the Deadline for image submissions 2012 Year of the Lizard logo. The Lizard” and that this text is legible is Wednesday, October 19th. The primary focus of the 2012 Year of the even when reduced to a 1” height. We winning logo will be announced Lizard campaign will be on North also ask that the image be designed by November 1st, and the winning American lizards, and the logo will to work equally well in color as in designer will be featured in a short be used in various places, including black and white. See the 2011 Year article in the first 2012 Year of the on newsletters, the Year of the Lizard of the Turtle logo for reference. Lizard newsletter. website, posters, and likely t-shirts. It Send your designs to Thanks in advance—we can’t will be displayed at PARC events, such [email protected] wait to see what you create! as our vendor tables at professional (NOTE: Please convert images to meetings, and other Year of the Lizard lower-resolution JPG, GIF, TIF or partner celebration events. within a PDF for the purposes of home.htm. Ask the Experts A note of caution: many states Though we work to prevent turtle after hatching, release the headstarted require a permit from their natural deaths on the road, when I do find turtles. Turtle eggs are more sensitive resource agency to translocate eggs a newly dead female, is it possible to to movement than are bird eggs. Birds or release hatchlings. Be sure to harvest the eggs and “plant” them for rotate their eggs in the nest. Once talk with your local state fish and her? It would be some consolation or laid, turtle eggs remain in the same wildlife agency to get the appropriate minor salvation. Can it be done? If position until hatching. Rotating a permissions so that you are all set so, can you detail the method to use? developing a turtle egg can cause its to legally help your local turtles! I ‑ Jean Weedman death. So in harvesting turtle eggs it also encourage you to submit your is important to keep the egg in the information to PARC’s Year of the Jean, same position as it was found. To keep Turtle USA Turtle Mapping Project It can work. The sooner harvest of track of their position, I place a small at www.parcplace.org/news-a- eggs can be done after the mother is pencil dot on top of each egg before events/year-of-the-turtle/203.html. killed the higher the success rate, but transferring them to a container. The Al Breisch the eggs will only develop if harvested container is partially filled with moist PARC Joint National Steering shortly before she would normally sand where I have created a series of Committee Co‑chair have laid them. Dr. Roger Wood and small depressions with my thumb the staff at the Wetlands Institute, to hold the eggs. The rescued eggs Do you have questions about turtle in cooperation with The Richard could also be placed in an artificial biology or turtle conservation issues, Stockton College of New Jersey, nest in the wild. This would require but you can’t quite seem to find the have pioneered efforts to salvage and knowing the nesting habitat for the answers? Submit your turtle questions hatch turtle eggs from roadkills. At particular turtle species as well as via email (yearoftheturtle2011@ the Wetlands Institute they remove the depth to dig the artificial nest. gmail.com) to our panel of experts, potentially viable eggs from the For more information about the and we will select questions to answer carcasses of roadkill Diamondback Diamondback Terrapin conservation in our upcoming newsletter editions.