Saving Nearly Endangered Turtles

Image Credit: Wikimedia

There are organizations that constantly protest captive animals and the businesses that house them.

By only thinking about animals trapped in a cage, those organizations refuse to look at the biggest reason why the zoo or aquarium has come to exist: conservation and education.

Without these businesses, the amount of people who strive to learn all they can about animals and make it their life’s work to keep those animals alive would be greatly diminished. There wouldn’t be places for children to see those animals and choose to be a part of a conservation team.

To spotlight the importance of zoos and aquariums around the world, the San Diego Zoo is working to reintroduce the nearly endangered western pond turtle to the ecosystem. To do this, researchers are releasing hatchlings into their local preserve with radio transmitters attached to their shells. The radio transmitters are applied with a flexible silicon sealant so as not to impede the turtles from growing.

According to the article Zoo Helping Reintroduce Rare California Turtle Species by Chris Jennewein of Times of San Diego:

Five juvenile western pond turtles were released into the Sycuan Peak Ecological Reserve on Thursday by a team of federal, state and zoo scientists. The turtles are part of a “headstart” program which involves raising hatchlings at the zoo to a large enough size to give them a chance of fending off natural predators.

The Turtles are mostly native to California, Oregon and Washington and have been extirpated (locally extinct) in Canada.

They are now uncommon, especially in southern California, due to habitat loss and invasive, nonnative predators like bullfrogs and largemouth bass, which eat up hatchling turtles that are no larger than a quarter.

The efforts of the San Diego Zoo have yielded results which have allowed them to understand what climates, habitats, and other things the western pond turtle needs to survive. With the information gathered from hatchlings and by watching their growth, scientists are going to be able to reintroduce them to the wild and hopefully revive their species.

I believe I can speak for everyone here at Awesome Ocean when I say: Thank you, San Diego Zoo, for helping conserve our planet’s wildlife.