Program Daily Schedules 2010 8th An nual Symposium on the Conservation and Biology of Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles Joint Annual Meeting of the Turtle Survival Alliance and IUCN Tortoise & Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group Program and Abstracts August 16 — 19, 2010 Orlando, Florida Contents should be cited as: Author. 2010. Title. In A. Walde, E.Walton and R. Schaffer (eds.) Program and Abstracts of the Eighth Annual Sumposium on the Conservation and Biology of Tortoises and Frewhwater Turtles. Turtle Survival Alliance, Orlando, FL. pp. xx-xx . 8th Annual Symposium on the Conservation and Biology of Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles | Orlando, Florida 1 Program Abstracts 2010 Captive Reproduction of Madagascar’s Radiated Tortoise (Astrochelys radiata ) at Two U.S. Facilities 1 2 COLETTE HAIRSTON ADAMS AND WILLIAM H. ZOVICKIAN 1Gladys Porter Zoo, Brownsville, Texas, USA [[email protected]] 2Dacula, Georgia, USA Considered by many to be the world’s most beautiful tortoise, the endangered Radiated Tortoise (Astrochelys radiata ) first landed in U.S. collections in numbers during the early 1960s. The first captive hatchings were born in 1973 at the compound of Dr. Bill Zovickian in Colorado Springs, Colorado and at the Gladys Porter Zoo (GPZ) in Brownsville, Texas. Subsequent to that time, both Zovickian and GPZ have produced hundreds of hatchlings. While acknowledging that successful reproduction has since been realized within many other private collections and zoological institutions, this presentation takes a look at the concentrated efforts of these two entities, including the trial and error that has determined many of the husbandry practices utilized today. Techniques proven successful for A. radiata have implications for other species of Madagascan chelonians in which successful egg incubation has been found to be much more problematic. Madagascar Freshwater Turtle & Tortoise Conservation: Oral Desert Tortoise Population Estimates on 29,000 km 2 – Taming and Tuning a Long-Term Distance Sampling Program LINDA J. ALLISON Desert Tortoise Recovery Office, US Fish and Wildlife Service, 1340 Financial Blvd, Ste. 234, Reno, NV 89502, USA [[email protected]] The monitoring program for desert tortoises in the Mojave and Colorado deserts began in 2001. For conservation and recovery purposes, the range of the desert tortoise in these deserts is subdivided into 6 recovery units. The monitoring program was developed to describe population trends over 25 years in each recovery unit within areas managed for desert tortoises. Tortoise conservation areas currently encompass 29,305 km 2, which challenges the project to conduct unbiased sampling across large areas of highly variable terrain. In addition, the scale of the project requires an extensive training and QA/QC program to establish consistency across field crews (50 people in 2009). The program currently reports annual density estimates, rather than interim trend estimates. Density estimates depend on precise estimates of detection probability (as a function of distance from the transect line), encounter rate (tortoises/km walked), and proportion of tortoises detectable above-ground or in burrows (G 0). Because desert tortoises in this area are sparsely distributed and cryptic, density estimates are ultimately limited by the ability to detect sufficient tortoises to build robust detection curves. The program has therefore continuously adjusted the sampling protocol to optimize tortoise detections. Primary adjustments have increased the distance walked each day from 3.2km (searched intensively) to 12km (searched more cursorily). The decrease in search intensity has slightly reduced the detection probability, but detections have increased even more with transect length. The 211 adult desert tortoises detected in 2009 were used to build separate detection curves for 2 areas of the desert with different sample effort. Although the program is designed to develop density estimates and trends in separate recovery units, the focus on increasing overall tortoises detections has also allowed density estimation within smaller tortoise conservation areas, where densities 2 vary from 1.4 – 10.8 tortoises/km . Estimation of G 0 uses 10 sites where transmittered tortoises are monitored to estimate visibility during periods when transects are walked. G 0 estimates have ranged from 0.52 – 0.98. Encounter rate and G 0 estimation contribute similar proportions to the variance of the density estimate, so over the period of this project, G 0 has also been a focus of improved estimation. Survey Methods for Terrestrial Turtles/Tortoises: Oral Sex Determination in Chinese Mauremys : with Emphasis on M. nigricans Conservation 1 2 BEN ANDERS , DON MOLL , AND PAUL VANDER SCHOUW 1Department of Biology, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX, USA [[email protected]] 2Department of Biology, Missouri State University, Springfield, MO, USA Patterns of sex determination are important knowledge for the ex-situ conservation of endangered species. We are investigating the pattern(s) in three Chinese turtles – Mauremys (Chinemys ) nigricans , the dubious M. (C.) megalocephala , and M. (Ocadia ) sinensis . Even though other species of Mauremys have demonstrated temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) type Ia (male offspring produced at lower temps, females at higher temps), threshold temperatures (the temperature break for production of male vs. female offspring) may differ for the species in this study. It is important to produce hatchlings of equal sex ratio to preserve genetic diversity in assurance colonies, and without an understanding for threshold temperature(s), this may not be feasible in artificially-incubated species with TSD. The three study species, particularly M. nigricans , are strong candidates for ex-situ conservation initiatives that should be explored considering these turtles’ precarious future. Chelonians of East Asia : Oral (Student) 8th Annual Symposium on the Conservation and Biology of Tortoises and Freshwater Turtles | Orlando, Florida 2 Program Abstracts 2010 Status of the Central American River Turtle (Dermatemys mawii ) in the Maya Forest of Guatemala: 2007 – 2010 Surveys** RONY ALBERTO GARCÍA ANLEU , ROAN BALAS MCNAB , ELEAZAR GONZÁLEZ , GABRIELA PONCE SANTIZO , JOSÉ FERNANDO MOREIRA AND MARCIAL CÓRDOVA Wildlife Conservation Society-Guatemala Program. Avenida 15 de Marzo, Casa No. 3, Flores, Petén, GUATEMALA [[email protected]] The Selva Maya is the second largest contiguous block of tropical rainforest in the American Continent, second only to the Amazon Jungle. The Selva Maya extends along South East Mexico, the Department of Petén in Guatemala and Belize. This is an important region for the conservation of the CA River Turtle, a highly threatened species, mainly due to its exploitation by local people who use it as a gastronomical delicacy in the region. Although it was very abundant in the past, its distribution is becoming more and more restricted due to habitat destruction and human predation, and its status in Guatemala was unclear until 2006. In 2007, we started to use Trammel Nets and standardized statistical methodology (Mark-recapture models) to determine the abundance of Dermatemys mawii in different lagoons and rivers in the Lowland Maya Forest in Guatemala. El Peru Lagoon has the highest estimated Dermatemys density in the lowland Maya Forest, with a estimated population of 202 turtles (SE 13.79, approximate 95% confidence interval 179-232 turtles) in only one section of the lagoon that we surveyed (the other part was not accessible because it was divided by a big sand bank). The population estimation allowed us to understand the importance of the lagoon in view of the significant population declines in the broader tri- national Maya Forest, especially in downstream sections of Mexico. In November 2009, we deployed eight VHF transmitters in four adult females and four adult males in El Perú Lagoon. We are tracking them since then, and confirmed our hypothesis of El Perú Lagoon as important dry season refuge and breeding site. We know now that during the low-water dry seasons, lagoons such as El Peru function as nesting and feeding refuges. If other lagoons close to San Pedro River are similar to the El Peru Lagoon, they probably also function as sources of CA River Turtle replenishment to San Pedro River watershed. Tracking these VHF tagged turtles allowed us to find a lot of nesting sites in the lagoon shore, and we found many eggs predated by mammals (raccoons and opossums suspected). Central American River Turtles: Oral (Student) ** Supported by a Grant from the Turtle Conservation Fund Community Ecology of Creek-Dwelling Freshwater Turtles at Nokuse Plantation, Florida BENJAMIN K. ATKINSON Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, 110 Newins-Ziegler Hall, University of Florida, P.O. Box 110430, Gainesville, Florida, 32611, USA [email: [email protected]] I surveyed the freshwater turtle communities of four creeks at the Nokuse Plantation (Walton Co., FL) from June-August of 2008. Nokuse Plantation is a 21,000-hectare private conservation tract in the Florida panhandle that serves as a wildlife corridor connecting Eglin Air Force Base to The Nature Conservancy land bordering the lower Choctawhatchee River. My sampling effort represents a total of 320 trap-nights and was conducted using baited hoop nets, modified crayfish traps, and hand-capture in Dismal, Big Cypress, Black, and Seven Runs creeks. I identified turtles to species, recorded demographic