Diamondback terrapins / Spare the turtles (New Jersey, USA) - via Herp Digest

3/15/15, Press of Atlantic City  

The Jersey Shore is filled with diamondback terrapin lovers.

People stop their cars to let them cross the road on their egg-laying excursions - even get out and carry them across.

Environmental activists badgered the state until it required fishing traps to exclude terrapins or provide them an escape hatch.

Volunteers lined many wetlands roads with short fencing to keep the turtles from wandering into danger.

Generations of young children have raised terrapins from salvaged eggs and released them into the back bays and estuaries where they live.

Schoolchildren in Galloway Township who did that twice asked the state to make the diamondback terrapin the state reptile.

Ask any or all of these people what should be done about the news this month that at least 4,300 terrapins were illegally taken from local waters to feed growing demand in Asia to eat them.

The answer, assuredly, would be: Stop it.

The state did that, for the time being, by ending the little-known terrapin harvesting season early.

At the request of the N.J. Marine Fisheries Council, the Department of Environmental Protection on March 2 halted legal terrapin taking that would have continued through the end of the month. The council said the suspension will give it and the DEP time to get "a better understanding of the numbers of harvesters and the number of turtles being harvested."

What's to understand?

There is no legitimate, significant "use" of terrapins here where they live. A century ago people made soup out of them, but then again a century ago people shot and ate hawks. Don't try that today.

The 4,300 poached terrapins were taken to a facility in Maryland. We've allowed out-of-state businesses to exploit our natural resources for ... nothing in return.

The solution is not to suspend the taking of terrapins but to end it.

There are lots of animals in New Jersey that people used to slaughter at will or take as pets, until the state stepped in and declared them nongame animals that can't be killed or taken from the wild.

Another group of students, from Manahawkin's Marine Academy of Technology and Environmental Science, persuaded two area legislators to introduce a bill to give terrapins that same protection enjoyed by songbirds and bats.

In December, Sen. Jeff Van Drew and Assemblyman Bob Andrzejczak, both D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, introduced a bill to declare the diamondback terrapin a nongame species - just a valuable part of the wildlife sharing New Jersey with its human residents.

That's the way to go. Let them be part of the unique nature of the Jersey Shore.

And while the Legislature's at it, how about making the terrapin the state reptile? The position is open.

The Influence of Recreational Crabbing Regulations on Diamondback Terrapin By-Catch Northeastern Naturalist – via Herp Digest

Northeastern Naturalist 21(1):12-22. 2014 

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1656/045.021.0103

Amy J. Upperman ¹, Timothy M. Russell ¹, and Randolph M. Chambers ^1,*

¹ Keck Environmental Lab, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23187.

^* Corresponding author - rmcham@wm.edu.

Manuscript Editor: Todd Rimkus

Abstract

Malaclemys terrapin terrapin (Northern Diamondback Terrapin) is susceptible to drowning in commercial-style pots used for the Callinectes sapidus (Blue Crab) fishery. Regulations to reduce by-catch mortality vary by state. We compared three different regulatory strategies with respect to crab catch and their relative effectiveness at reducing terrapin by-catch. To mimic their possible use by recreational crabbers, we grouped and fished together ten unbaited crab pots with no by-catch reduction devices (BRDs), ten with large BRDs, and ten with small BRDs in a tidal creek in southeastern Virginia. Over 24 sampling days, the total legal crab catch (crabs ≥ 12.7 cm) in pots with no BRDs (29.9 ± 10.0 SD crabs pot^-1) and large BRDs (27.9 ± 6.2 crabs pot^-1) was significantly greater than catch in pots with small BRDs (14.0 ± 5.8 crabs pot^-1). Legal crabs varied in average size from 14.1 ± 1.2 cm, 14.0 ± 1.2 cm, and 13.7 ± 1.0 cm from pots with no BRDs, large BRDs, and small BRDs, respectively, but these differences were not significant. Of a by-catch of 71 terrapins, 69 were from pots with no BRDs, 2 from pots with large BRDs, and none from pots with small BRDs. The potential mortality of terrapins in pots without BRDs would have reduced the population in this tidal creek by 42% in just 24 days. Based on these results, regulations requiring the use of large BRDs come closest to the objective of reducing by-catch mortality of terrapins without a large effect on crab capture in Virginia. Both recreational crabbing and commercial crabbing with no BRDs on pots in terrapin habitat can contribute to declines in local terrapin populations.

As Diamondback Terrapin nesting declines, center eyes habitat assistance (Via Herp Digest)

BRUNSWICK NEWS (Georgia) 30 August 11 (Anna Ferguson Hall)

Hidden under layers of grass and vegetation, the dozen turtle nesting boxes lining the Downing Musgrove Causeway to Jekyll Island go unnoticed by most causal observers. But for the endangered terrapin turtles that slip into the wire-lined boxes to hatch eggs, the habitat-enhancing tools are vital for survival.

From May to July, terrapin turtles use the boxes to lay and hatch eggs.

The most recent season for the turtles is a cause of some concern to staff members of the Georgia Sea Turtle Center. The number of nesting turtles dropped by half, said Terry Norton, executive director of the rehabilitation and conservation center on Jekyll Island.

The lower number is a mystery.

"We don't know if it was a barren year or if the terrapin population has had that significant of a decline," Norton said. "We don't have any exact numbers, but we do know, from observation and counts, that the number of nesting turtles is severely decreased."

Of the 12 nesting boxes on the sides of the causeway, three have been found to be more popular with turtles and are being labeled as hot spots, where the majority of the season's nesting turtles migrated to lay eggs, Norton said.

Raccoons - or at least one raccoon - have been a nuisance to nesting turtles this past season. A box in one of the three hot spots was broken into by a raccoon or raccoons on several occasions, Norton said. Watching the intruder on an camera placed inside the box, Norton was able to see the small night mammal squeeze between the fencing protecting the box and steal eggs.

"This is the first time we've ever had a raccoon get inside a box," he said. "We'll now have to figure out the best way to keep them away." At the sea turtle center, the hatchling numbers were also down by a large percentage. Norton and staff regularly hatch eggs from terrapins struck by cars on the causeway or hurt in the area, but this season, they were far less active than usual.

Only 40 eggs were hatched at the center this year, compared to 110 last year. Norton isn't sure of the cause of the lower number. Norton has noticed another strange trend: More males were hatched than females. He said it's likely because temperatures in the nesting boxes were lower along the causeway than in normal hatching territories. The lower temperatures made for more males, he said.

Norton and staff are conducting a study to figure out which nesting box sites would benefit most from being made warmer in order to decrease the male bias condition developed this year, he said. "Lower temperatures make more males, and we need to find the boxes that would benefit most from being about 86 degrees," Norton said. "We are trying to balance out the male-female ratio to help keep the population healthy."

Diamondback Terrapins Focus of Barnegat Bay (Via HerpDigest)

Diamondback Terrapins Focus of Barnegat Bay (NJ) Study

Wareton, NJ (AP) August 29, 2010- A blend of science, conservation and technology goes into an ongoing 20-year study of diamondback terrapins and the conditions affecting their mortality.
"Overall we are extremely pleased with the progress of this study," Drexel University Professor Hal Avery said. "Our students are working on many diverse projects."

Avery heads the 20-year university study, which is based at the Lighthouse Environmental Center in Waretown and involves the section of the E.B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge off Barnegat Bay.
In its fifth year, the project includes studies of turtle migration patterns, population and spawning and is funded by Earth Watch of Maynard, Mass.

Avery said volunteers this year came from the United States, Japan, Canada and Britain. On Friday, the team came across one of the hazards faced by terrapins: a commercial crab trap.

"We call it a ghost trap as it has broken off from a number of traps and was found floating in the bay. These traps could kill terrapins that climb inside it and drown," Avery said.

Ironically, a crabber reported that morning finding a crab trap containing a terrapin that had been tagged for study.

Avery and team members Abby Dominy, a Drexel University graduate student, and Lise Theriault, an Earth Watch volunteer from New Brunswick, Canada, went off by boat to meet up with team members in another boat who were investigating the crabber's find.

The adult female terrapin was alive and well with the three other researchers: Dr. Edward Standora of the Department of Biology, Buffalo State College, Buffalo, N.Y., Julianne Winters, a Drexel University doctoral student who has been with the project for three years, and Earth Watch volunteer Ellen McKnight of New York City.

"They had been looking for that turtle for several weeks," Avery said.

The crabber who alerted them had seen the small orange transmitter antenna that was attached to the turtle's shell bobbing in the water in the crab trap. Standora designed the radio units used to track the turtles.

"There are all sorts of debris from recreation and commercial crabbing," Avery noted. "It creates a potential hazard for them."

Winters said she is studying the impact of bulkheading, which often blocks turtles seeking to return to the area where they were hatched. As part of her studies, she blocked an area and observed their behavior.

"They are spending more time moving around and are then facing more risk," Winters said.
Avery and his team then met up with another team in a bay salt marsh area where Drexel student Lori Lester was using a sonic telemetry device that plays recorded boat engine sounds.

"By measuring their neuro activity, we discovered they can hear, and that was exciting," Lester said.
This summer, her tests demonstrated that turtles placed in a small trench in the marsh did not respond to recorded boat sounds.

"There was no reaction. They just swam right past the speaker. If it were an actual boat in its path, the turtle could have been killed."

Assisting Lester were Drexel University graduate student Elise Winterberger of Bucks County, Pa., and Earth Watch volunteers Eileen Bayer of Maine and Rachel Seary of Wales. They were using a sensor that measures temperature and depth readings.

Avery celebrated his 50th birthday last week with his colleagues, students and volunteers at the Lighthouse Center.

"We really are a family here, and it's fascinating to see the progress of our Ph.D. students who have graduated and who have become full investigators," he said.