It’s time to set these turtles free and restore their species.
— were recently released into the swampy waters of a Cook County forest preserve wetland, they were cheered on by no fewer than a dozen people who’d had a hand in either fostering the little ones’ development or in restoring the turtle’s habitat.
It’s the sort of all-hands-on-deck approach agencies and institutions have had to take to stabilize what’s left of the Blanding’s population, a once-common species that’s dwindled in the face of habitat loss, poaching and other human-caused stressors. Blanding’s are a semi-aquatic freshwater turtle, meaning they like swamps versus rivers and lakes. The Chicago region was once home to vast tracts of marsh, but what’s left of that habitat is now highly fragmented.The preserve where the baby turtles were released is the only place in Cook County harboring what Anchor deems a Blanding’s population of “moderately healthy size.” The newcomers will increase the existing Blanding’s community by a third.
At the preserve in question, she has marshaled teams of volunteers and interns to hold the line on phragmites and other troublemakers. Through the hand-removal of invasives, the scheduling of prescribed burns and the highly targeted application of herbicides, conservationists have created an environment in which native plants and wildlife like Blanding’s turtles can flourish.
The turtles often can’t find both wetland and upland within a contained location due to fragmentation. That leads them to cross roadways in search of a nesting area, putting them on a collision course with cars. Road kills, according to studies, are one of the highest causes of death among adult Blanding’s, which suffer in general from what’s been termed “unsustainable levels of mortality.”
If humans have stacked the deck against Blanding’s, the head start program is a small way to help tip the scales back in the turtle’s favor.
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