Butler's Pond Turtle Project...
Some time in April New England Herpetological Society (NEHS) member Jonathon Ganzel got in touch with some other members of NEHS about a dredging project at Butler's Pond in Quincy MA scheduled for fall 2021. Jonathon lives near there and visits often to see the turtles that live there. He was concerned, and rightly so, that the turtles might not do well during the dredging. By the way, it's a storm retention pond, but its so full of silt that it no longer works real well.
So... a lot of coordination began to happen between The City Council of Quincy, Julie Sullivan - Environmental Scientist - Department of Natural Resources, The Friends of Butler's Pond, NEHS and CAVPT.
I was able to secure the collecting permit from MA Division of Fisheries and Wildlife to trap the turtles.
Joe Martinez, NEHS, and CAVPT borrowed 8 turtle traps from Bryan Windmiller of Zoo New England Grassroots Wildlife Conservation.
Dr. Greg Mertz, Director of the New England Wildlife Center (NEWC) in South Weymouth agreed to house the turtles during the dredging.
The Friends of Butler's Pond agreed to transport any turtles trapped to the NEWC.
On Thursday 8-19-2021 Joe and I rode down to Quincy in the Silver Streak (boy do I love that van) and waded into Butler's pond, which I estimate to be a little smaller than the size of a football field, and set and baited the traps. We use canned sardines. Turtles like those. Traps are hoops with cloth mesh stretched over them, a little over 3 feet in diameter and about 4 feet long. One end has an opening in a funnel shape and the turtles can easily find their way in, and not so easily find their way out. You try to set the traps where they are not totally submerged, so any turtles that are trapped can come up for air. We didn't have to wade in there more than about 15 feet or so, which was good, because we were up to our wastes in really thick, mucky goocum... the kind that sometimes you're wondering if you're even going to be able to get out of it. I can safely say from personal experience, that pond seriously needs to be dredged.
On Friday 8-20 Joe and I checked the traps and rebaited them. We got 15 turtles that day, 2 snappers, the larger one having a carapace (top part of the shell) of about 12", and 12 painted turtles of various sizes, and one red-eared slider (invasive). We handed off the turtles to Kurt Schatzl and Jonathon (NEHS) and then, Joe removed leeches from any turtles that had them, most of them did. Leeches can be tested to see if there's any nasty things going on in the turtle blood. Clever huh?
Members of the Friends group transported turtles to NEWC directly after capture and leech removal.
There was a Press Day on Saturday 8-21. One of the City Councillors was there, as well as Julie and members of the Friends group, the local newspaper, the aforementioned CAVPT and NEHS members, and a bunch of concerned neighbors. Joe did a nice presentation of our end of it, other people spoke and a total of 62 people showed up... which is really good for a turtle project.
A few days ago, on Wednesday 8-25, Joe and I checked the traps for the last time and pulled them out of the water. Jonathon has caught some turtles with a dip net by stealthily approaching them while they are near the bank. The turtle total is at 30 and I think Jonathon will continue to net as many as he can up until dredging time.
I want to thank Jonathon for getting the whole thing started. It was really a very nice collaberation of a bunch of nice people from different groups. Joe did a great job of coordinating with the other groups, and I think it has gone about as well as it could have gone. Check out this webpage with photies of this cool event here...
