The Bog Turtle Project

The Bog Turtle Project

Why It Matters

The state-endangered bog turtle, Glyptemys muhlenbergii, is a small, secretive turtle with a dark brown shell and distinctive orange patches at the rear of its head. Bog turtles are habitat specialists; they inhabit open, unpolluted wetlands with mucky soils. Historically, bog turtles ranged from upstate New York through Georgia and as far west as Tennessee; however, continued development and habitat degradation has destroyed much of the bog turtles’ habitat.

Even in New Jersey, a range-wide stronghold for the species, bog turtles have disappeared from more than 50% of their historically occupied sites and have been state-listed as endangered since 1973. In 1997 they were listed as a Federally Threatened species. Currently, 90% of bog turtle habitat is on private land and more than half of the Northeast’s bog turtles are found in New Jersey. As with most species in our state, habitat loss is the driving force in the bog turtle’s decline.

Conservation Efforts

Together with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and NJ’s Endangered and Nongame Species Program, CWF is working to restore and enhance bog turtle habitat in New Jersey. CWF biologists are visiting high priority bog turtle sites with historic turtle records and evaluating the status of the habitat. Bog turtle habitat is highly susceptible to vegetative succession and encroachment by invasive plants. Vegetative succession is a process by which the composition of plant species in a specific area changes over time, which can negatively affect bog turtles by eliminating open areas and thereby reducing suitable nesting and basking habitats.

Runoff, sedimentation, and surrounding development create ideal conditions for phragmites, reed canary grass, and purple loosestrife. These non-native plants will form monocultures in the open wetlands, changing the hydrology and out-competing the native plant communities that bog turtles depend upon. Mechanical removal, wetland approved herbicides, or controlled grazing by cows or goats are used to control succession and invasive species encroachment.

It is incredibly important to protect and restore existing bog turtle habitat because their unique conditions (unpolluted, mucky, open wetlands) are extremely difficult to recreate. These distinctive habitats also support a host of other rare species that all benefit from bog turtle conservation. By engaging landowners on the importance of bog turtle habitat and federal incentive programs to protect and restore these habitats, CWF hopes to increase awareness and appreciation of bog turtles while protecting and restoring these rare communities.