Tennessee Aquarium to "shell"-abrate "the Year of the Turtle" – via Herp Digest

by WTVC, Press Release, 2/02/20

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — (Editor's note: This story was submitted to WTVC by Casey Phillips of the Tennessee Aquarium)

From King Bowser and Aesop’s tireless tortoise to the brothers Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and Raphael, literature and pop culture are awash with famous turtles. In the real world, however, these shelled reptiles are often overlooked, despite their ecological value and a global decline in turtle populations.

“I always say that turtles are under-studied, under-represented and under-appreciated, despite the important role they play,” says Dr. Josh Ennen, an aquatic conservation biologist at the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute. “I have a strong respect for turtles, and I’m deeply appreciative of their resilience.”

Turtles are textbook examples of so-called “living fossils,” predating dinosaurs and outlasting the calamity that wiped them out. Despite a history of indomitably surviving whatever nature can throw at them, turtles now face threats such as habitat loss and unsustainable trafficking that have made them the planet’s most-imperiled group of vertebrates.

In light of these threats, turtles could definitely use a bit more attention. Fortunately, there are nearly enough species of turtles — 360 — to celebrate a new one every day for an entire year.

That’s exactly what the Tennessee Aquarium and a variety of zoological institutions and conservation organizations plan to do in 2020. This ensemble of turtle care experts and fans is officially declaring 2020 to be “The Year of the Turtle.”

This yearlong turtle bonanza will comprise a wide range of turtle-y awesome updates and additions to the Aquarium visitor experience as well as training a bigger spotlight on the work being done by conservation groups to study and safeguard turtles around the world.

Since opening its doors in May 1992, the Aquarium has always been a steadfast champion of chelonians and is home to the largest collection of freshwater turtles in North America. Turtles can be found in many of the Aquarium’s habitats, and the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute is at the forefront of conservation efforts to study and protect turtle species, especially in the turtle-rich environs of the Southeast.

“At the global scale, the Tennessee Aquarium is one of the premiere places for turtle conservation and research,” Ennen says. “From hatching out some of the rarest species on the planet to international research projects where we’re figuring out how we can best conserve turtle species, we have turtles covered at all levels. I think that’s what makes this place so special and unique.”

During 2020, the Aquarium will leverage its turtle expertise to show guests why these reptiles are not only amazing animals but also increasingly in need of help. The shell-ebration comprises a variety of activities and educational outreach, including:

The Turtle Trail — As they wind their way from the mountains to the sea in the River Journey building, guests will find a string of themed “trail blazes” that offer interesting insights about many turtle species on display that might otherwise have been overlooked.

Turtle Odyssey 3D — On Feb. 13, the Tennessee Aquarium IMAX 3D Theater will begin screening this all-new, giant-screen film. The production focuses on the epic journey undertaken by Green Sea Turtles hatchlings and scientific efforts to save this majestic species from extinction. This journey “through the eyes of a turtle” features narration by Academy Award-winner and turtle conservation champion Russell Crowe.

Turtles of the World — On March 1, guests will be able to explore a completely refreshed and expanded gallery focused on highlighting turtle diversity with particular emphasis on turtle “hotspots” in Southeast

Asia and the Southeastern United States. The gallery features several new exhibits, a variety of kid-friendly interactive games and a working turtle nursery where guests can observe scientists caring for turtle hatchlings.

Despite their dissimilar appearance, turtles and humans lifespans follow similar courses, from their life expectancy to the age at which they reach sexual maturity. 

Unfortunately, the general decline of turtles worldwide is largely the result of human activity, says Dave Collins, the Aquarium’s director of forests and animal behavior.

“The international trade in turtles, particularly into Asia, is extremely heavy, but the biggest challenge they face is having a safe place to live,” Collins says. “As human communities expand, the threats to turtles continue to grow as well. Turtles need a safe place to live for 20, 30, 40 — even 100 — years. Once their environment has been disrupted, their populations are frequently severely impacted or even lost.”

But, he adds, the Year of the Turtle celebration will offer opportunities to show people the incredible diversity of turtles around the world and highlight the important roles they play in environments much closer to home.

“One of the most important roles the Aquarium has always played and will continue to play this year is bringing awareness of turtles to the public,” Collins says. “We help to make people like turtles more when they come here and see the diversity of turtles we have on exhibit. That’s a big part of getting people to care.”

Tennessee Aquarium leads effort to develop interactive map of world's turtle communities - via Herp Digest

by WTVC- Tuesday, November 19th 2019

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — (Editor's note: This story was submitted to WTVC by Casey Phillips of the Tennessee Aquarium):

In the midst of what has been called the planet’s sixth mass extinction, many scientists describe the rate of species loss on earth as having reached crisis levels.

Faced with the epic challenge to halt, or at least slow, the disappearance of species, conservationists must make the best use of every dollar and minute of time. To do this, conservation efforts are often focused on biodiversity “hotspots,” a method that has proven effective in targeting species-rich, at-risk regions.

Yet, for all their benefit in guiding conservation projects to areas of need, hotspots leave something to be desired when used to direct safeguarding efforts for groups of animals or plants other than those upon which the hotspot is based.

“Hotspots have been proven very effective at directing conservation efforts,” says Dr. Josh Ennen, a biologist with the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute. “But for groups of animals or plants with a different evolutionary history, such as turtles, hotspots might not accurately reflect the species richness patterns of the species you’re trying to save.”

To more accurately locate — and thus conserve — at-risk species, conservationists need a more data-driven approach that is specific to the plants or animals they’re seeking to help.

Freshwater turtles are one of the world’s most-imperiled groups of animals, with about 60 percent of the world’s 360-odd species either threatened or extinct. General imperilment and relatively low species count make turtles ideal candidates for testing a more-accurate, statistics-based method of mapping their distributions across the planet. 

A potential solution to this conundrum appears in an article published in the latest issue of the academic journal Biological Conservation. An international group of scientists led by Ennen and including Conservation Institute Geographic Information Systems Analyst Sarah Sweat processed data on the distribution of turtles around the world to generate an interactive map that defines the boundaries for “communities” of related turtle species.

The map identifies 63 global turtle regions, highlighting several as high-priority targets for ecologists based on conservation value and several metrics of biodiversity.

In addition to re-confirming the importance of previously identified turtle hotspots such as the American Southeast and Southeast Asia, the map finds that some turtle-rich areas actually consist of multiple, unique communities. Rather than a uniform swath of color, for instance, the map depicts the southeastern corner of Asia as six distinct communities rendered in various shades of green.

“It’s important to know that it’s multiple unique assemblages and not one giant collection of turtles,” Ennen says. “Another unique thing our map shows is the importance of turtles in Southeast Asia extends farther north into China than what others thought. We identify the Yangtze River and several coastal rivers in China that are very important for turtle conservation.”

Collaborators in the study included researchers from:

• University of California, Davis (Davis, California)
• Chiapas University of the Sciences and Arts (Chiapas, Mexico)
• U.S. Geological Survey
• Chelonian Research Foundation (Lunenburg, Massachusetts)
• Earlham College (Richmond, Indiana)
• Weber State University (Ogden, Utah)

Digging deeper into known hotspots to identify groupings of related turtle species will be crucial to future conservation efforts. This will be especially true in the future as new species are identified in lesser-studied regions such as Central Africa. Because the map can be updated to reflect new data sets, the boundaries of the communities defined on the map could be reshaped and entirely new ones could be established to ensure the highest degree of accuracy for future conservationists.

With updated, species-specific knowledge in hand, conservationists will be able to evaluate and tailor plans of action for each unique community rather than acting less efficiently by painting with too broad a brush, Ennen says.

“Money to do boots-on-the-ground research work to conserve turtles is very limited,” he says. “When you look at large-scale analyses like with this paper, what we’re trying to do is figure out how to divvy up the pie and help people figure out where to spend their money to get the most conservation effort out of their conservation dollar.”