Tag: northern diamondback terrapin

How to See Terrapins in the Wild in New Jersey

This story marks the third of five blog stories spotlighting New Jersey’s Diamondback Terrapin – and educating people on the research and efforts being done to protect these fascinating reptiles!

Part 1, Monday, was an introduction into the world of the Diamondback Terrapin. Part 2, Tuesday, featured CWF’s research efforts to protect the terrapins. Part 3, today’s blog post, will look at great places to view these beautiful turtles. Part 4, Thursday, will highlight some important ways you can help protect the Diamondback Terrapins. Part 5, Friday, will showcase some other important regional research being done by our partners.

 

by Ben Wurst

During their nesting season, Northern diamondback terrapins are usually pretty easy to spot along the coast of New Jersey, and throughout their range. They are beautiful turtles with very unique coloration.

Individuals vary in coloration, but in general, their upper shell, or carapace, is dark with a diamond shaped pattern on it. Their lower shell, or plastron, is a light yellow/green color. Their skin is a grey color with black spots that vary highly between individuals. Almost all have a light upper mandible.

From May through July, spotting a terrapin is pretty easy!

Females leave the protection of the coastal waterways to find suitable nest sites to lay eggs. They seek areas with sandy soil, like dunes, parking lots and road shoulders. When our barrier islands were developed, roads were created to access those islands.

The creation of these roads also increased the amount of available nest sites for terrapins. But the development itself actually decreased the amount of suitable nesting habitat for them overall. Much of our coast is now bulkheaded.

Bulkheading restricts the natural movement of terrapins and limits their ability to find suitable nest sites. So, now they must take what they can get: roadsides. Nesting on the edges of roads is a perilous journey for terrapins. The vehicles that travel on those coastal roads may have careless drivers behind the wheel.

Terrapins may be found in many different places along the coast, especially roads that criss-cross saltmarsh. Use extreme caution in trying to spot terrapins on active roads used by vehicles – not only to avoid driving over terrapins, but for your own safety and that of other drivers or pedestrians.

Some widely used locations include Avalon Boulevard and other west-east highways connecting the mainland with barrier islands and peninsulas. Many coastal areas in Cape May also feature high numbers of terrapins, while Monmouth County, Ocean County, and Meadowlands coastal regions feature plenty of terrapins as well.

However, one of the best places to view terrapins during their nesting season is inside the 5,000+ acre Great Bay Blvd. Wildlife Management Area, Little Egg Harbor, NJ. The WMA is located along the coast and is accessible by motor vehicle from the 5 mile long road that ends at the Rutgers Marine Field Station. The road was originally planned to connect the mainland with Atlantic City in the early 1900s. Luckily that plan fell through and the last bridge was never built (road is also called 7 Bridges Road, after the 7th bridge that was never built). There is plenty to see and do out on GBB, at all times of the year. A wide variety of wildlife can be observed from the road, including ospreys, terns, oystercatchers, herons, egrets, and shorebirds. Lots of outdoor recreation opportunites await as well, including crabbing, fishing, and kayaking. There are boat ramps along the road, and all the owners of the local marinas are very nice, including Capt. Mike’s, Rand’s Boats, and Cape Horn Marina.

• More info about visiting Great Bay Blvd. WMA

Viewing terrapins:

Terrapins can be timid if approached, especially when nesting. Please keep your distance when near a nesting female. You wouldn’t want to cause a female to abandon laying eggs in a nest cavity! If she is unable to cover up her eggs with soil then they might become an easy meal for a gull or crow… Watching them nest is fun to watch as they excavate down and lay 8-12 eggs.

If you see one on the road and there is no traffic, slow down or stop and let it cross. If there is traffic coming, stop your vehicle, put on your hazard lights and carefully get out and move the terrapin in the direction it is heading. Terrapins can bite, so be careful and pick it up from the side of it’s shell (called the bridge). Use 1-2 hands to ensure you have a good grip. Sometimes they use their legs to try and get you to let go! Put it on the soft shoulder to be out of harms way. If you have a GPS or a smartphone, record the location and submit us a sighting via our online terrapin sighting form. Data collected from the form will help guide future conservation efforts for them in NJ.

Other great viewing areas:

• Gateway National Recreation Area – Sandy Hook Unit
• Island Beach State Park
• Edwin B. Forsythe NWR – Oceanville
• Wetlands Institute – Stone Harbor
• Reeds Beach
• Fortescue Beach

Ben Wurst is a wildlife biologist for Conserve Wildlife Foundation of New Jersey.

This story marks the second of five blog stories spotlighting New Jersey’s Diamondback Terrapin – and educating people on the research and efforts being done to protect these fascinating reptiles!

Part 1, Monday, was an introduction into the world of the Diamondback Terrapin. Part 2, today’s blog post, will feature CWF’s research efforts to protect the terrapins. Part 3, on Wednesday, will look at great places to view these beautiful turtles . Part 4, Thursday, will highlight some important ways you can help protect the Diamondback Terrapins. Part 5, Friday, will showcase some other important regional research being done by our partners.

by Stephanie Egger, CWF Wildlife Biologist

I am pleased to announce CWF was awarded a grant from the Regional Conservation Needs Program* for the development of a conservation strategy (strategy) that focuses on the conservation, management, and protection of terrapins from Massachusetts to Virginia.

For the next two years, we will be working with over 30 partners, many of whom are part of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the Diamondback Terrapin Working Group (DTWG), assembling data and developing a strategy with the help of their years of expertise working with terrapins.

The overarching goal of the strategy is to help achieve long-term sustainability of terrapins by identifying the species current and historical populations and its habitat (known and unknown occupancy); characterizing and ranking threats; prioritizing focal areas for regional and individual state management; identifying data gaps; and reviewing the regulatory status in each state. The strategy will describe a strategic initiative for implementation of conservation actions across eight states and identify focal areas for conservation. The results of the strategy could be used to solicit additional funding for implementation for more regionally significant areas for terrapins in the future.

We’ve hit the ground running for this project and will convene the partners in meetings later this year at the College of William & Mary in Virginia and Cape Cod, Massachusetts as well as visit states for more local terrapin meetings.

More information on this project can be found on the Northeast Regional Conservation Needs (RCN) Grant Program site.

*“The Northern Diamondback Terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin terrapin) in the Northeastern United States:  A Regional Conservation Strategy” is supported by State Wildlife Grant funding awarded through the RCN Program.  The RCN Program joins thirteen northeast states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in a partnership to address landscape-scale, regional wildlife conservation issues.  Progress on these regional issues is achieved through combining resources, leveraging funds, and prioritizing conservation actions identified in the State Wildlife Action Plans.  See RCNGrants.org for more information.

 

Stephanie Egger is a Wildlife Biologist for Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ and Co-Chair of the Mid-Atlantic region of the Diamondback Terrapin Working Group

Join us on this fascinating journey into the world of the Diamondback Terrapin

Last week, I drove slowly down a road with no buildings or homes on either side, with only vast salt marsh as far as the eye could see. Over the course of the roughly 10-mile round trip, I passed maybe four other cars. But there was another kind of traveler that I found in abundance – 22 diamondback terrapins crossing the road on the way out, and another 18 of these gorgeous turtles on the way back (although I’m sure I saw some of them twice)!

Amazingly enough, this was a drive along the New Jersey coast in June. If you haven’t guessed it, I was on Great Bay Boulevard in Little Egg Harbor. And if you haven’t been there, now is the time to go – it is a true wildlife spectacle that you have to see to believe.

New Jersey’s coast is filled with wonders during the summer months – wonders that go beyond its crowded beaches, boardwalks, and traffic jams! Believe it or not, the coast still has plenty of nature to be found, often in total seclusion. And diamondback terrapins offer as amazing a wildlife story as any.

So today we kick off Terrapin Week! Read our first installment below for an up-close look at the terrapin’s habitat, appearance, range and status. Then stay tuned for a brand new story each day this week by our terrapin biologists Ben Wurst and Stephanie Egger, with topics including our biologists’ research projects, how our volunteers are making a difference, terrapins across the East Coast, and New Jersey locations where you have the best chance of seeing terrapins in the wild!

 

David Wheeler

Executive Director, Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ

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Meet the Terrapin

by Stephanie Feigin, CWF Program Coordinator

Northern diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin terrapin) are native to New Jersey and inhabit the many miles of coastal salt marshes and estuaries along the Atlantic Coast and Delaware Bay. They exclusively inhabit coastal salt marshes, estuaries, tidal creeks and ditches with brackish water (a mix of both salt and freshwater) which is bordered by spartina grass. They are the only turtle species in the world that is specially adapted to spend its entire life in this type of water. 

The northern diamondback terrapin is a medium-sized turtle that varies in length from only 4 to 5.5” in males to 6 to 9” in females. Terrapins have a gray, brown, or black carapace (top of shell) and a lighter plastron (bottom of shell), which is a greenish-yellow. The skin is light to dark gray with black spots and other dark markings. Both sexes have a light colored upper mandible. They are named for their diamond shaped pattern on their carapace. Adult terrapins primarily eat mollusks and crustaceans, including snails, fiddler crabs, and mussels. They also eat blue crabs, green crabs, marine worms, fish, and carrion.

Terrapins are cold-blooded, or ectothermic. They hibernate during the winter and bury themselves at the bottom of or in the banks of creeks and ditches. Studies have shown that terrapins also exhibit a high level of site fidelity or they return to the same territory every year, some even occupy the same small creeks year after year. Terrapins have a very small home range, from Cape Cod, Massachusetts to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

In 2001, a status review of reptiles in New Jersey recommended that the Northern diamondback terrapin be listed as a species of special concern in New Jersey. The listing as special concern “warrants special attention because of some evidence of decline” (NJ ENSP-Species Status Listing) and little is known about their actual population status in New Jersey. However, terrapins are still harvested for food in New Jersey and the total harvested annually is not known. Since Terrapins are still considered a “Game” species subject to harvest, the Special Concern designation was never officially applied to the species and will not be until they are re-classified as a “Non-game” species.

Major threats to the health of the population include; habitat loss, mortality from being drowned in crab traps, and road mortality. Each year hundreds of terrapins are killed by motor vehicles throughout their range and here in New Jersey. The Conserve Wildlife Foundation (CWF) and their biologists are working hard to protect these incredible reptiles with their many conservation efforts. We are asking you to “Be Terrapin Aware” while driving along roads in New Jersey’s coastal region, and stay tuned for more posts during Terrapin Week about our efforts to protect these turtles!

Slow down, don’t tailgate and help a terrapin cross safely!

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

This week the annual nesting season of northern diamondback terrapins began. Females leave protection of our coastal estuaries to seek out suitable nest sites, course gravel and sand, which is often along roadsides. These individuals often cross roads to get to these nest sites. Please be courteous of terrapins and slow down, leave a greater following distance, and help a terrapin cross when you see one on the road.

• You can report sightings of terrapins on roads on our website
• Share photos of terrapins with our Flickr group

 

Get college credit and help protect terrapins!

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Since 2010, Conserve Wildlife Foundation (CWF) has been engaged in the conservation of northern diamondback terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin terrapin) in the Little Egg Harbor area. This year, CWF seeks to continue to protect terrapins through additional conservation and education initiatives that include the installation and maintenance of barrier fencing, road patrols on Great Bay Blvd., and the continuation of this student internship. This year we are attempting to replicate a study conducted in 2004 on the same road, and results will help us to better determine how effective our conservation measures have been.

Interns will conduct field work in the lower Barnegat Bay watershed including hourly road patrols on Great Bay Blvd., volunteer steward scheduling and management, educational related activities, and the best part – save hundreds of female terrapins from becoming road kill!

Currently this is a volunteer student internship, but there is an opportunity for this to be a paid internship through the Barnegat Bay Student Grant Program. Willing students must develop a scientific research project to qualify for the grant. The deadline to apply is April 4th.

• Learn more and apply
• Make a donation to support our “Be Terrapin Aware” campaign!

Barnegat Bay terrapin moves south…

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Northern diamondback terrapins are known to have a very small home range. Some have only been found to occupy the same small creeks, year after year. To help study the size of terrapin populations in New Jersey researchers have used a method called mark and recapture. No one really knows the size of the terrapins population in New Jersey and throughout the range of the Northern subspecies, which ranges from Cape Cod to Cape Hatteras. A portion of the population is captured, marked, and released. The method is repeated and the number of marked individuals is counted and should reflect a proportional number of marked individuals in the entire population.

Since 2001 terrapins have been marked on Great and Barnegat Bays. This past summer we got hits on three females that were PIT tagged (it’s like the Home Again chip for your pet). Their tags were read during road patrols by our intern Ashley. Two of the three were linked back to previous captures. Each is ID’d by the notches on their carapace (upper shell). Each bridge scute on their carapace is assigned a alpha code.

• ACIJV –  First encountered on June 20, 2008 at age 7. Weighed 805 grams with a carapace length of 157cm. She was recaptured again this summer by Ashley on June 9. She is now 12 years old and weighed 934grams. Her carapace was 170cm long. She moved only .86 miles or 4,561 feet from her last encounter, which is typically the small range seen in terrapins.
• The second is ABINOQ – she was orginally trapped on Barnegat Bay (near Gunning River and the Barnegat Docks) on August 23, 2011. She was 8 when trapped and weighed 766 grams with a CL of 170mm. She was re-caught this summer while crossing Great Bay Blvd in Little Egg Harbor. This now makes her 10 years old and she weighed 965 grams and had a CL of 180mm. Now she moved a total of 16.7 miles in two years!!

I find it really hard to believe that ABINOQ traveled 16 miles south in two years. There are a couple ways that she could have moved that far south. Superstorm Sandy – I think that this is a good possibility. Usually in late October most terrapins should have been entering hibernation, but a few could have still been active. I got a couple calls shortly after the storm hit from residents in the Little Egg Harbor area who found displaced terrapins in their yards. Given the fact that upwards of 6 feet of water were forced onto the coastal marshes with the storm surge, this could have pushed ABINOQ south towards Great Bay Blvd, where she was encountered this summer. Human intervention – this is also a very likely scenario. People often pick up terrapins when they find them on or near roads and sometimes take them home. Other times they take them and put them somewhere else, where they think they should belong… This summer I found a large female on an inland road in Upper Twp. (Cape May County). She was over 1.5 miles from any kind of brackish water…which is a long distance for any aquatic turtle to travel on land!

These findings are really interesting and with the data collected we’ll be able to learn a lot more about the local terrapin population. We hope to expand the use of PIT tags readers by fundraising to purchase additional readers. If you’d like to donate to help us purchase one, please shoot me an email.

A glimpse into the life of one adult female terrapin

By Stephanie Egger, Wildlife Biologist

Over the summers of 2004 and 2005, as part of my graduate research for Saint Joseph’s University and in partnership with Rutgers University Marine Field Station, I tagged 300 adult female northern diamondback terrapins to gain a better understanding of their nesting movements, nesting events, and road mortality on Great Bay Boulevard in Tuckerton, New Jersey.  These terrapins were tagged with PIT tags (Passive Integrated Transponder tags) which are the size of a grain of rice and inserted directly under the skin.  The PIT tags are individually numbered and can be read with a hand-held scanner in the field for essentially the life of the terrapin.  Some terrapins were nesting more than once per season and generally within 50 meters from their original tagged location, but a few were found great distances (1000 meters) from their initial location (See Szerlag-Egger and McRobert 2007).

Ben Wurst, our Habitat Program Manager, and Kristin Ryerson, a CWFNJ intern, were able to scan some terrapins this summer as part of the Great Bay Terrapin Project and came across one of the terrapins I tagged in 2005!  She has survived 7 years (and counting) on Great Bay Boulevard from becoming road kill on a road where 50 terrapins can be killed in a nesting season (See Szerlag and McRobert 2006).  The distance between her location in 2005 and 2012 was 826 meters!  It appears that she may have emerged from the creek and decided to travel north to nest instead of south (see Google Earth image below).  I am hopeful we can continue to monitor the terrapins on Great Bay Boulevard and collect further information on tagged terrapins as it may have management implications for the future.

Be Terrapin Aware this summer!

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Last Thursday there was a flurry of activity throughout coastal New Jersey. It was one of the peak days of the beginning of the northern diamondback terrapin nesting season. I had scheduled myself to be off to work on projects around my house but ended up working for half the day on our Great Bay Terrapin Conservation Project. Female terrapins were everywhere! They were crossing all over Great Bay Blvd., a 5 mile long road that bisects pristine terrapin habitat. The shoulders of the road are suitable nesting habitat as well, so at times as many as 10-15 terrapins could be seen in one small section of the road. There were so many that one terrapin bumped right into another one on the shoulder of the road!! They were digging nests and laying eggs all over the place. It was certainly a rare sight. Luckily traffic was mild and  the weather was clear so there were little road kills. One female fell victim to a Little Egg Harbor Twp. mower who was mowing the edges of the road. This certainly wasn’t the best day to mow the shoulders! Before more terrapins could be killed we contacted LEHT public works and they called off their mower until further notice. On a side note, we have asked the township and the environmental commission to adopt a delayed mowed regime in the past and unfortunately one terrapin died because of this. I even emailed the public works director early last week about nesting activity picking up and I asked for him to please let me know when they were planning to mow so we could have someone walk in front of the mower to be sure no terrapins were hit. On the positive side, we were able to salvage 7 eggs from the terrapin, and they were successfully placed in a hatchery in Loveladies on LBI. We have our fingers crossed that they’ll hatch later this summer!

Finally, we have had more of a presence on Great Bay Blvd this year with the assistance of our new intern, Kristin Ryerson. She is collecting data (size, age, weight, and other data) on terrapins that she encounters while conducting road patrols on Great Bay Blvd. We’ll be using this data to compare it to some collected in Barnegat Bay and past studies that were conducted on the road. Her position is a volunteer position so I really appreciate all of her help so far! We also have volunteers who are acting as “Terrapin Stewards” where they also conduct road patrols to collect sightings of terrapins, educate visitors to the road about terrapins, and they also make sure terrapins safely cross the road. Without their help this project would not be successful!

Ask Little Egg Harbor to help us protect terrapins!

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Currently there are no posted speed limits on Great Bay Boulevard from Sea Isle Drive to the east end in Little Egg Harbor Township, Ocean County, New Jersey. The road bisects one of the largest state wildlife management areas along the entire coast of New Jersey which is also designated as the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve. Designation as a National Estuarine Research Reserve is “to promote the responsible use and management of the nation’s estuaries through a program combining scientific research, education, and stewardship.” The habitat alongside the road is home a diverse array of wildlife and one species, the northern diamondback terrapin, often crosses the roadway to get to prime nesting areas along the road shoulders.

Female terrapins range in length from 6-9″ and actively search for nesting areas during summers months from May through July. They are hard to see with their dark coloration and high speed limits make identification even harder. On some days as many as 50 terrapins can be seen crossing the road. Many people stop to help these terrapins cross safely and they themselves put their lives in jeopardy. Luckily no one has been seriously injured or killed yet. Unfortunately, terrapins aren’t so lucky, previous studies have indicated that up to 30% of terrapins are killed on Great Bay Blvd. while attempting to find suitable nesting areas (Szerlag and McRobert, 2006).

The Township of Little Egg Harbor knows about the problem there but has done little to help solve it. Public safety should be a serious concern for any type of government. In other parts of New Jersey and in other states people and property have been seriously injured or killed and damaged while either helping one cross safely or by avoiding a collision with them.

Little Egg Harbor can help reduce the chances that a pedestrian gets killed or injured, and they can reduce the amount of terrapins that are killed by motor vehicles. By reducing the speed limit along the road from 50 mph to 30mph both people and wildlife benefit and motorists get to their destination safely.

•  Please help by signing the petition

References: 
Szerlag, S., and S. P. McRobert. 2006. Road occurrence and mortality of the northern diamondback terrapin. Applied Herpetology 3:27-37.

 

Protecting Terrapins through conservation along Great Bay Blvd.

by Ben Wurst, Habitat Program Manager

Northern Diamondback Terrapins are native to New Jersey and inhabit the many miles of coastal salt marshes along the Atlantic Coast and Delaware Bay. Terrapins were once very common and were used as a main food source of protein by Native Americans and then European settlers. In the early 1900’s it was hunted so extensively that it almost faced extinction. Luckily, during the 1920’s, use of terrapins for food dropped in popularity. This allowed the population to slightly recover and avoid extinction. However, several major threats still threaten their survival. Habitat loss, mortality from being drowned in crab traps, and road mortality all pose major threats to the health of the population. Each year thousands of terrapins are killed by motor vehicles throughout their range and here in New Jersey, Great Bay Boulevard is no exception.

Great Bay Boulevard or Seven Bridges Road extends approximately 5 miles into estuarine emergent wetlands and northern diamondback terrapin nesting habitat. The boulevard is surrounded by over 5,500 acres of protected coastal habitat (Great Bay Boulevard Wildlife Management Area – Managed by NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife), a relatively unspoiled, estuarine ecosystem. This road, at times, has high a volume of traffic, especially on weekends when boaters and outdoorsmen travel on the road to get to and from one of the several active marinas along the road. Currently during May-August there is no protection to terrapins when they cross Great Bay Blvd. from vehicle traffic. Most terrapins who cross the road are adult females who are laden with eggs and are looking for a suitable nesting site. These females lay their eggs in a sand/gravel mixture where it is easy for them to dig and cover their eggs, like sandy beaches and in scrub-shrub habitat along road edges. Many female terrapins are inadvertently hit-by-car and injured or killed by speeding motorists or people unaware of the summer nesting habits of the terrapin. This high mortality rate has caused the local population to decline and it has also caused the average size of adults to drop significantly over the past 20 years.

How you can help:

Volunteers are needed to help install ~ 4,000 ft. of barrier fencing along Great Bay Blvd to help reduce the amount of road kills. Sambol construction will be helping us by trenching a ditch for us to place the fence in. Volunteers will help lay out fence, install metal posts, hang fence, and back fill trenches.

• Please pack a lunch and bring plenty of water, sunblock, and bug spray.
• We are starting work on Friday at 8am, but if we don’t finish, we’ll wrap up work on Saturday morning.
• We will meet after the first bridge; click here for a Google Map link. You can park here and then we can car pool to the section of the road where the fence will be installed.
• Please register if you plan to attend by emailing Ben Wurst.

Check out our project page on Facebook and become a fan today!

• Learn More about this project