Pam’s Perspective
Pam Otto is the Manager of Nature Programs and Interpretive Services for the St. Charles Park District
So, how do you get ready for winter? Have you dug out the long unders? Pulled on that favorite sweater? Put the turtles in the fridge?
Okay, so maybe a naturalist’s winter preparation rituals are a little different than the norm. But when a species’ survival is at stake, we’re more than willing to put forth the effort.
If you’ve visited Hickory Knolls, or even if you haven’t, you might be aware that we’re participants in an endangered-species project known as the Blanding’s Turtle Recovery Program. Pioneered 15 years ago by the DuPage Forest Preserve District, the project’s aim is to revitalize dwindling numbers of Emydoidea blandingii, an intriguing and normally long-lived species that’s been hard hit by the effects of human development.
For many years, Dan Thompson, the DuPage ecologist spearheading the project, has used radio transmitters to monitor female Blanding’s turtles in the wild. When egg-laying time comes, he and his crew head out to the wetlands these turtles call home, slog through the muck, track down the gravid, or egg-bearing, girls and bring them back to the Willowbrook Wildlife Center in Glen Ellyn. After the eggs are laid, the turtles are taken back to their home wetlands to resume their normal activities, while the eggs are left behind to be incubated in an optimal environment that’s safe and predator free. It’s an effective method, but one that’s also physically demanding and
sometimes exceedingly time consuming.
Our role in the program is to hopefully streamline a portion of that egg collection process. The turtle pond in our lobby was designed with that goal in mind: to create and sustain an indoor space that, with any luck, will offer the sort of conditions Blanding’s turtles find suitable for breeding.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking and, no, we don’t have Barry White playing in the background. Neither do we have mood lighting, nor champagne chilling in a bucket. But what we do have chilling are turtles, in the fridge, in the initial stages of hibernation.
Hibernation is a phase that’s essential to getting our Blanding’s into breeding condition. In the wild, they would spend months in a watery hibernaculum in near-freezing temperatures, with little or no access to oxygen— conditions that would kill most other types of creatures. Then, as temperatures moderate in late winter, the turtles would begin to rouse and their bodies undergo a series of changes, including hormone surges. Finally, when the spring thaw arrives, the wild turtles would emerge, hungry and, um, ready to mate.
Now, since we can’t drop the temperature in the lobby down to freezing, or below, and still expect visitors to want to come by, we’ve instead dropped the temperature of the turtles themselves.
(Continued on Page 2)
Pam’s Perspective – Page 2
At Hickory Knolls, our basement refrigerator—the one designated for employee use, not the one included in facility rentals—will now serve as the winter home for turtles 41, 50, 58, 84, 92 and 100. (In any sort of scientific endeavor, it’s important to keep track of individual participants; that’s doubly true for breeding projects, to ensure genetic diversity. The Blanding’s turtles at Hickory Knolls have all been microchipped for identification purposes, but also have white numbers painted on their shells so we can tell who’s who at a glance.)
Lauren, our nature programs supervisor, has set the turtles up in tubs of water that currently are at 58F. Over the next few weeks she will gradually lower the temperature, about 5F per week, until it reaches 42-44F. The turtles will remain in that state for 4-6 weeks, until we reverse the process and bring them, 5F at a time, back up to around 70F—our version of a warm spring day.
With our “main” turtles so occupied for the next couple of months, their home—our centerpiece Blanding’s turtle exhibit—is conspicuously empty. Hopefully, though, not for long. “Loaner” Blanding’s, captive stock not required to enter a breeding state, will be coming soon from our friends at DuPage. Although they won’t be super active, since wintertime is downtime for just about any cold-blooded critter, breeding or not, the turtles will still make for some entertaining viewing as they bask, swim and chase after their crayfish and minnow prey.
If you’d like to observe this amazing, state-endangered species, give us a few weeks to get the new turtles in and acclimated, then come on out to Hickory Knolls. We’ll welcome you, help you feel at home, and answer any questions you might have about Blanding’s turtles or our other natural history exhibits. If you’re timing’s right and one of us is heading toward the fridge, we may even be able to bring you a nice, cold…beverage.
Pam Otto is the manager of nature programs and interpretive services for the St. Charles Park District. She can be reached at 630-513-4346 or potto@stcparks.org.