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Under the Canopy
On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, former Minister of Natural Resources, Jerry Ouellette takes you along on the journey to see the places and meet the people that will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and Under The Canopy.
Under the Canopy
Episode 94: What 200 Million Years of Survival Can Teach Us
From the edge of extinction to the heart of wetland conservation, Dr. Sue Carstairs is leading a revolution in turtle rescue and rehabilitation at the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre. As veterinarian and executive director, she's transformed this humble organization into Canada's only dedicated turtle hospital, saving thousands of these ancient creatures each year.
The numbers are staggering – 2,300 injured turtles admitted last year alone and 9,000 eggs incubated from injured mothers. From their newly-built facility in Peterborough, Dr. Carstairs and her team orchestrate a province-wide rescue network with 1,500 volunteer "turtle taxis" and 50 first-responder veterinarians. It's a race against time to save creatures that have survived 200 million years but now face unprecedented threats from roads, habitat loss, and illegal collection.
What makes this work so crucial is the unique life history of turtles. A snapping turtle must live 50-60 years just to replace itself in the population. Every adult saved has a measurable impact on conservation. These aren't just fascinating creatures – they're essential components of healthy wetlands that filter our drinking water and prevent flooding. When we save turtles, we're protecting ecosystems that sustain all life.
The Centre's work goes beyond rescue – they're pioneering education programs, collecting vital research data, and inspiring a new generation of conservationists. Learn how you can help these remarkable creatures that can regenerate spinal cords, survive with almost no oxygen, and carry the wisdom of 200 million years of evolution in their DNA. Visit ontarioturtle.ca to discover how you can join this extraordinary effort to protect Ontario's eight at-risk turtle species for generations to come.
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Speaker 3:As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons of our natural world become harder and harder to hear, but they are still available to those who know where to listen. I'm Jerry Ouellette and I was honoured to serve as Ontario's Minister of Natural Resources. However, my journey into the woods didn't come from politics. Rather, it came from my time in the bush and a mushroom. In 2015, I was introduced to the birch-hungry fungus known as chaga, a tree conch with centuries of medicinal applications used by Indigenous peoples all over the globe. After nearly a decade of harvest, use, testimonials and research, my skepticism has faded to obsession and I now spend my life dedicated to improving the lives of others through natural means. But that's not what the show is about. My pursuit of this strange mushroom and my passion for the outdoors has brought me to the places and around the people that are shaped by our natural world. On Outdoor Journal Radio's Under the Canopy podcast, I'm going to take you along with me to see the places, meet the people. That will help you find your outdoor passion and help you live a life close to nature and under the canopy. So join me today for another great episode, and hopefully we can inspire a few more people to live their lives under the canopy. Under the Canopy, all right. Well, thanks all to the listeners out there throughout Canada, the States, switzerland, ghana, trinidad, tobago, all around the world. We really appreciate you listening to our podcast and, as always, if you've got any questions, you've got any shows you'd like to hear about, let us know. We'll see what we can do about putting it together and getting it on for you.
Speaker 3:Now, this morning was an interesting morning. I'm out doing my normal run with my chocolate lab gunner and this time I have my son's dog, benny, and Benny's a cockapoo and ball crazy. So we're out doing the morning run and, lo and behold, I'm watering. I've got several patches of wild leeks that I've transplanted and guess what? Somebody found them and they're gone, which just kind of ticks me right off as I bring in them. You got to get the right soil configuration. You pretty Pretty much if you find trilliums in one area, you'll find wild leeks in another. But upon closer and I thought, oh great, somebody's dug them out and taken them on me. But upon closer, look, it looks like probably a rabbit came in and ate all the leaves from that. But I'm hoping that the bulbs will stay and that I will actually get some extra patches. So but that's all part of it.
Speaker 3:Not only that, but I'm finding morels out there right now, so I got a bunch of morels. I passed them on to Dean, the producer, because I know he likes morels, or implied he did. So I got Dean some morels for today and along with some portabellos that I got from Waymac Mushroom Farms a couple days ago, which will make a nice meal for Dean. But it's always interesting and you never know how these things are going to take out. My living apothecary is coming along fine. My stinging nettle is doing okay, my mullein is doing okay, along with a lot of other stuff. But I was disappointed and surprised about the leaks being gone. But hopefully the bulbs will stay and there was enough there that they'll come back up next year. And today we have a special guest, dr Sue Carstairs from the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre. Welcome to the program, sue.
Speaker 4:Oh, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's great to have individuals such as yourself to let our podcast listeners know about what's going on out there that a lot of people don't even know about. So first of all, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 4:So I'm a veterinarian and a biologist and have a passion for conservation, and currently I'm the executive and medical director at the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre. So our mission is to help with the conservation of Ontario's wild turtle populations and the habitat. So we do this in a number of different ways that I can get into as we go along.
Speaker 3:Oh, very good. So yourself being a veterinarian, is it just turtles you practice on, or do you practice on other animals as well?
Speaker 4:Currently I'm just doing the Turtle Center. It's sort of overtaken my life. I have been in private practice, I've worked for charities, I worked in shelters and then narrowed it down. I always did want to work in conservation and to work on a project that had a population impact, that had a population impact and, lo and behold, turtles sort of fell into my lap and it's perfect, because road mortality is a big factor in Ontario's turtle population declines. So being a veterinarian and being able to fix them up and release them is amazing and because of their life history, being such long-lived species but taking so long to mature and not many that make it to adulthood so every adult that we can save and put back is actually having a population effect.
Speaker 3:So that feels really good, very interesting. Well, I didn't realize that you're actually aware of that. So had I known that, I would have had a whole bunch of other questions, particularly about Lyme disease and ticks and stuff like that and controlling the population. But that's maybe for another day. So, sue, tell us whereabouts you're located and where you're located and for our international audience, kind of from a Toronto kind of center, if you could kind of break it down for people and give us a bit of a background on where you are and where the Turtle Conservation Centre is.
Speaker 4:Sure, yeah, so we're located in Peterborough, ontario, and that's about a two-hour drive from Toronto. It's northeast of Toronto and it's on the outskirts of town. We just built our own facility. We had a capital campaign that was successful. We have a hundred acre property that's being gifted to us. So that's where our new facility is and it's fairly large and it incorporates a very large public accessible place. So we have a large central education center and it's attached to the hospital and rehabilitation center so people can actually see into the surgery and because a lot of the females that come in are carrying eggs, we also have a very large hatchling program, so that's very interesting to see. So there's lots for the public to see and do, and we just moved in so we are open to the public now.
Speaker 3:Very interesting. So you mentioned about your campaign for the building and that. So if people want to make a donation, is this tax receivable?
Speaker 4:Absolutely it is. We're a registered charity and we do have some naming opportunities still available for the capital campaign, but we are very happy with any size donation. Of course that's how we run, but we're very happy with any size donation. Of course that's how we run. So our operational budget is supported by donations, mostly by private individuals. And, yes, so people can donate online, in person or by mail however they would like to, and if you want to, find out more about us, obviously visit our website at ontarioturtleca and give you more details, right?
Speaker 3:So what exactly takes place at the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre?
Speaker 4:So we have very much a multi-pronged approach to conservation. So conservation really requires that the public get involved, like education for the public on conservation is vital to moving it forward. So that's why we put such an emphasis on education. As we all know, you know, if the public wants something moved in a certain direction, that can move it a lot faster than biologists with their reports, to be honest. So we try and inspire the public towards stewardship activities and that's what the education program is about. We have an education staff that do presentations on site, they do tours and they also do presentations off site. So that's one hub of it.
Speaker 4:The very central area, of course, is the hospital and last year we admitted 2,300 turtles from across the province. So they come from all over the province and we were able to do this on such a wide scale because we have such an amazing collaborative group of volunteers. We have about 1,500, probably more than that now turtle taxi volunteers and they help to get the turtles from A to B. We also have about 50 first responder veterinarians and they volunteer their time to help us out through their clinics across the province. So then the turtle can get immediate care and be brought into us, and turtles are amazing at healing. Of course they have a very rigid shell which is made out of bone, but it protects them a lot from being struck by cars. So our success rate is much, much higher than any other species would be. So we're able to get a lot of the turtles that are at Bivit repaired and then back to full function and then back to the wild. So that's the main thing of what we do. But then the head starting program, or the hatchling program, is another way to augment the population. So last year we incubated 9,000 eggs. They all came from turtles that were admitted to the hospital and then those are hatched and then the babies are released back to the mother's wetland.
Speaker 4:The other side of what we do is our data really is helpful to inform where road mortality mitigation structures should be placed. So our data goes on to work for conservation, not only in mitigation work, but all our data is very useful for other conservation projects throughout. So yeah, that's basically the nuts and bolts of what we do. Each program has sort of a life of its own, but they're all very much interconnected. For instance, our hospital is a teaching hospital, so we have veterinarians come and learn how to do the work that we do or other rehabilitation centers come and learn. So we like to work with as many different people as we can and spread the word and help everyone to do more.
Speaker 4:And it does work. And what we do in the hospital we've shown statistically does buy time to fix the problem. Fixing the problem obviously involves preventing them getting hit, and eco-passages allowing them passage under the road is the way to do that. And this year we're actually partnering with a road ecologist and the people who make the fencing for the eco passage to try and work on local projects to show, and then we can showcase them in the education center, like how this prevents mortality and how people can get involved. So it's really all about education. But, um, yeah, the the hospital's been our hub since we started, but this is the first time we've had our own purpose-built facility, so we're really excited. We literally just moved in, so it hasn't really sunk in yet.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very good. I don't think a lot of people realize but, for example, if you're driving up Highway 69 and you look along the sides of the road, you'll see this rather low fencing. That's rather well. It's fairly dense, almost like a density of a chicken wire, I'd say, and that's turtle-proof fencing, correct.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there's a lot of projects going on. There's hundreds across the province, more and more. So, yes, that's right. And not only does it protect turtles but other species as well. So they made so that there's been a lot of work over the last 15 years or so on these eco passages to see, you know, so it doesn't harm any other species, and then we can protect snakes as well as turtles, for example.
Speaker 4:Obviously, the bigger species have over passages instead of the under passages, but a lot of species have been photographed using them. The smaller species use them to cross the road safely. So that's pretty cool, and I know the MTO is actively keen on remediating as many places as possible. There's lots of citizen science groups that are promoting action in their area, a lot of biologists working on projects, so it's a problem that everybody would like to solve. Of course, road mortality isn't their only threat. There's a lot of other threats to turtle populations, habitat loss being probably the number one, but also illegal trade. So our education program can help to inform people on the other threats that there are. You know, boating mortality, fishing, bycatch, things like that.
Speaker 3:So when you talk about educational components and outreach and learning, teaching people, do you actually get into schools to help the schools the kids learn?
Speaker 4:We do absolutely, and during COVID and also while we're in the midst of the move, we pivoted a lot to the video side of things and we still are able to do that. So we're able to reach schools that are very far away through video tours and discussions. But where we can, we do send our crew out to schools and senior centers and trade shows and things like that. We do have a very small but very, very amazing staff, so there's only so many things they can do, but we prioritize what we think is going to have the biggest impact on conservation. But myself I love the little kids and the questions they ask. They're so amazing. If you can introduce them at that age, they're going to remember that, especially since we have some ambassador education turtles and they're non-releasable turtles that live with us. So that sort of puts a face to the name and they can really remember because they all have characters, of course.
Speaker 3:Well, when I was elected, I used to see a problem at, quite frankly, in the local creeks in Oshawa where I was elected, whereby there'd be shopping carts and tires and basically a junk throw in.
Speaker 3:And what I did was I established and created a new technology where I brought in a classroom hatchery, fish hatchery program and put it in along all the schools along the creek and so we reared rainbow trout in there, the creek, and so we reared rainbow trout in there.
Speaker 3:And one of the key things that we did was we used to bring out the metro east anglers at a fish hatchery and in markham I believe it would be and it um, they would do electroshocking and catch the rainbow trout and do an extraction eggs in conjunction with the ministry of natural resources, and take them back to the hatchery and get them to an idup stage and then we put them in the schools and then the kids saw these, whether it was in libraries or the hallways, and then the kids actually got a chance to come down and release them in order to realize the importance of the stream and change the mindset of a lot of youth.
Speaker 3:And I've did virtually all the schools along the Oshawa Creek and a number of the other creeks in the Oshawa, and that program eventually expanded so one group picked it up and now I believe there's over 100 schools utilizing that basic technology that I developed in order to help kids, and it's the same thing that you're doing here is showing these kids some of the things with the turtle hatching programs, right oh yeah, that's amazing what you did.
Speaker 4:That's fantastic. I didn't know that. Um, yeah, and you hit it bang on is that if people can see and be involved, they're more likely to understand and to learn to love nature. And, um, we do release events where we can for the less endangered species so we can get the public involved, because that's what really is. Was um kind of instrumental in getting people to be involved in conservation, is understanding it, and I think everybody pretty much everybody already loves turtles. Let's face it, everybody has childhood memories of turtles. But the more we can promote um more stewardship, if everybody does something, it adds up to a whole lot. So and then, and if we show, with our education program, we do surveys and we tally them and we do post-presentation surveys, that we follow up after the season and say, what did you actually do with this information? And so we can tally it up and say, hey, with our education program we actually tangibly saved X number of turtles, and that feels good too, and it also makes people realize that they have an impact and that's so powerful.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, and I know the fish hatchery program. We actually put well over a hundred thousand swim up fry back into the streams in the area. But it was very interesting and what we did was we got to the Kiwanis Clubs in Oshawa the Sitnam and a number of the other clubs to pay for the buses to bring the school kids down. And the interesting part that I found was when the process started, you know you had your parents who were attending and kind of just to helpers to be on there, and as soon as the electroshocking started to take place, the parents I remember one specifically hey, and they pushed the kids out of the way to get in to look to see because they couldn't believe what they were seeing. So it was really interesting that the outreach was not only for the kids, who found it amazing and a full cycle for them to be able to see the extraction into the egg stage and then to release them back to the fry back in, but the parents and the teachers getting involved to that level as well.
Speaker 4:Oh, absolutely. That's kids. It's certainly worth educating them in themselves and getting them inspired, but they go home and talk to their parents and their friends and other kids. We have one display in our education center that's it's a giant mock-up of an eco passage and it was, and it was made by Parks Canada that lives with us right now. So the idea is that kids can play in it and have fun looking at the pictures inside and the parents outside. There's all kinds of educational things that they can read on how they can help.
Speaker 4:I think people for the most part people do want to help, but they just don't know where to start. So we also started a network on our website. It's called the Ontario Turtle Conservation Network. We started this in conjunction with Parks Canada too. It helps to connect people, maybe people that want to get involved or people that are involved and they want to learn from others or to collaborate with others. So it's the network of everyone doing turtle conservation work across the province and it's an interactive map so you can see who's doing what, where you can contact them. So then, if we get a lot of inquiries, we want to help. We've seen a problem in our area. How do. We do it so they don't have to reinvent the wheel. We can connect them with other citizens doing huge projects in their area. It's also for biologists and scientists, so I love that. Part of my job is the networking and putting pieces together that can help each other and knowing that it's going to lead to something really impactful.
Speaker 3:Now you mentioned about the 9,000 eggs. So what is the? Is it all? Turtles breed at the same time of the year, so they're all laying eggs at the same time.
Speaker 4:In Ontario. Yeah, it's a bit variable, but June is the nesting time. Now as many males get hit on the road as females. So far we've only seen males. So far this year. They come out first and then June is the time for nesting for all species. It's a trend that you see. First you see the species, then that species, but June is a crazy month and then it goes back again to males and females and some of them will have more than one clutch in a year.
Speaker 4:But yeah, june is the crazy time, so that we're just preparing for that right now. And because, yeah, because the females come in and they're they're pretty badly injured so they can't be released in time to lay their own eggs, so we induce them and collect them. Or, if they sadly don't survive, we're able to still collect the eggs, hatch them and then, even though they're not going back to their home wetland, the babies will and help to perpetuate their genes. So right now we're also planning for the releases, so they'll be released across the province as they're coming in for the releases. So they'll be released across the province as they're coming in.
Speaker 4:So the hotline staff probably has the most difficult job, I think, of the whole place is coordinating. That you can imagine. I think last year we did like 10,000 calls or something we tallied. So it's a bit crazy, but that's the way they come in and that's the way they go home, and a lot of it is networking with volunteers as well that are trained on how to do releases. So it's a really nice network to see all these people come together for this common cause.
Speaker 3:Well, if you're getting 10,000 calls, from my perspective that's a good thing because people are knowing where to call and who to call about this stuff, when a lot of other cases I think that people they don't know where to call.
Speaker 3:To be honest, I know one time I found a hit turtle, a Blanding's turtle, and it was just outside of Fenland Falls, between Fenland and Kirkland, between Fenland and Kinmount, anyways, up in that area in there, and I was quite surprised.
Speaker 3:This was quite a while ago, it would be 20 years ago or 25 years, well, 25 years or more. Anyways, the turtle had been hit by a car and I could see it was injured. So I stopped, I got out and the shell had been broken. I didn't see a lot of blood and things like that. So it's, and I don't have enough background or experience with turtles to know I didn't know where to call or who to outreach to. So, believe it or not, I duct taped the shell back together and released the turtle back into the stream or into the marshland in an area where it wouldn't be close to the road, again hoping that it would survive, not knowing where else to try and take or assist it. But some of us try to do the things that we can, and hopefully that turtle would be one that's still around.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and back then we only started up being in existence in 2002. So you, probably there was nowhere to take them to individual, but we're helping the population and that population is vital to a healthy wetland and with turtles it's. It's really an easy sell from a conservation point of view, because if people aren't really into turtles per se, they they. The use of them for humans is very tangible. So being part of a healthy wetland is essential because that's where a lot of our drinking water comes from, and a healthy wetland acts like a filtration system for the water that we drink. So people say, oh, so turtles help to keep that healthy and that benefits me. So it's a really easy pitch.
Speaker 4:Really, wetlands have another have many other useful functions too. For instance, nowadays, when we're seeing lots of floods, that's often because wetlands have been removed and they act like a sponge to soak up that water as needed. So there's all kinds of great uses. So so, from a conservation point of view, they've been around 200 million years, so they've been around longer than dinosaurs. So for themselves, it's so cool to be able to help save them.
Speaker 4:We can learn so much from them. Physiologically, they do things that are just amazing. They can regenerate spinal cord. They can live in almost zero oxygen. They can store sperm for years, so all these really cool things we can learn about. Plus, they help to keep the environment healthy so that we have a healthy drinking water source. But yeah, um, our phone number is on our website, or you will. You're welcome to publish it and if people can call we're right now eight o'clock in the morning till eight at night for calls across the province and we'll help that turtle get immediate care and brought into us so that they can be released back. They'll go back where they came from. They'll go back to their home wetland.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Sue. You mentioned other rehab centers. Come in to learn, so are there other rehab centers that take care of turtles?
Speaker 4:There are. We're the only hospital in Canada that is dedicated exclusively to turtles and we're also accredited by the College of Veterinarians, so we're a veritable hospital. There's lots of other centers that do some turtle sew and rehabilitation work, that are run by rehabilitators. They may have a veterinarian who helps them out occasionally, but they don't often have veterinary staff. So we can help them to learn how to do the basics, and they do an amazing job. And then if the turtle needs ongoing care or surgery, they're welcome. We will take any of those and we do that out of our budget, so they'll be sent to us for the surgery, et cetera. So, yeah, lots of great places out there. For sure, ontario's got a big rehabilitation network.
Speaker 3:Well, I found it interesting. You mentioned about regenerating spinal cord. I did not realize that, and I know that there's a lot of research taking place, for example, with a, a mushroom called lion's mane, in that it reconstitute neural pathways in the brain and spinal column and the spinal cord and in order to help alleviate things like Alzheimer's, dementia, parkinson's and things along those lines. So, quite frankly, some of the research in the spinal cord area with turtles may be assistive in other areas that could lead to other breakthroughs for people.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, so interesting. I didn't know that. About the mushrooms, yes, so interesting. I mean, when I first started working with the turtles, I used to honestly think I was getting cases mixed up, because I thought this one cannot be walking. Now he's got his spinal cord severed and now there's been actual research to show they can regenerate. It's not predictable, so some will go on to full function and some will not. So, based on that, though, we try with pretty much every turtle that comes in, and then the ones that don't go on to full function, they're placed as education turtles, so they still work for conservation that way. Right, yeah, they're pretty amazing, and we just basically put them back together, provide good nursing, care and support, and then they heal. They heal slowly. As you can imagine, they're cold-blooded, so they do everything slowly, but it's probably more efficient than any other species I've worked with Hi everybody.
Speaker 5:I'm Angelo Viola and I'm Pete Bowman. Now you might know us as the hosts of Canada's favorite fishing show, but now we're hosting a podcast. That's right every Thursday, ang and I will be right here in your ears bringing you a brand new episode of Outdoor Journal Radio. Hmm, now, what are we going to talk about for two hours every week?
Speaker 4:Well you know there's going to be a lot of fishing.
Speaker 5:I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and how to catch them, and they were easy to catch. Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show. We're going to be talking to people from all facets of the outdoors, from athletes.
Speaker 6:All the other guys would go golfing.
Speaker 5:Me and Garton Turk and all the Russians would go fishing To scientists.
Speaker 1:Now that we're reforesting, it's the perfect transmission environment for life.
Speaker 2:To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated, you will taste it.
Speaker 5:And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you are. Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions and tell the stories of all those who enjoy being outside Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3:And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga Health and Wellness. Okay, we're here in Lindsay, ontario, with Rusty, who's up from California and visits us every year, and Rusty has been a faithful Chaga user for a long time. Rusty, maybe you can just tell us about your experience with Chaga.
Speaker 6:Well, I feel that it's had a significant impact on my health and well-being. I believe in what I'm doing. I think that Jerry is very knowledgeable on it. If he says something, I take that very seriously.
Speaker 6:He has spent most of his life in the health care field and certainly knows what he's talking about, and I like to be around people like that because that's what keeps me healthy. And I'm 80 now and I'm going to try to enjoy what I've created with the motorcycle and one thing or another, which will require that I live for at least another 10 years to get back what I've invested in my health and wellness.
Speaker 3:So you're seeing a big benefit from it an overall healthy environment and when you go back to California next month, you actually take quite a bit with you back to California, don't you?
Speaker 6:Oh yes, we're going to be there for eight months and we don't want to run out. So we take it back and we take it every day and you know I, you know, I, like I say it's not a problem for me.
Speaker 3:Right, so how do you take it, rusty?
Speaker 6:I put a tablespoon or a teaspoon rather in my coffee each morning. Okay, when I brew the coffee, yeah, and I put it in as the coffee's brewing. I put that in with it.
Speaker 3:Oh, very good.
Speaker 6:And I put a little bit of cinnamon in with it too, right. And then I sweeten my coffee because, take the bitterness, a little bit of bitterness. I use the chaga and maple mix that you make up for those that want to be well and stay well. Okay.
Speaker 3:Well, thanks very much. We appreciate you taking the time and sharing your chaga experience with you, and we'll make sure you have a safe trip back to California.
Speaker 6:Sure enough, all right, okay, thank you, jerry. Yeah, thanks, rusty. Thanks, sir, my pleasure.
Speaker 3:We interrupt this program to bring you a special offer from Chaga Health and Wellness. If you've listened this far and you're still wondering about this strange mushroom that I keep talking about and whether you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of interest to you. To thank you for listening to the show, I'm going to make trying Chaga that much easier by giving you a dollar off all our Chaga products at checkout. All you have to do is head over to our website, chagahealthandwellnesscom. Chagahealthandwellnesscom, place a few items in the cart and check out with the code CANOPY C-A-N-O-P-Y. If you're new to Chaga, I'd highly recommend the regular Chaga tea. This comes with 15 tea bags per package and each bag gives you around five or six cups of tea. Hey, thanks for listening Back to the episode.
Speaker 3:Now. You mentioned about the 9,000 eggs, and it was predominantly June where the nesting season takes place. I assume we call it nesting season. Yeah, absolutely, and so to develop a similar program to educate kids in schools would not be viable at all. But what kind of? And what I'm leaning to is. I recall in the 118 coming across a turtle that had been hit by a car and it was a female, and there were eggs lying on the road. So what I did was unbeknown, not sure what to do or how to do it and, quite frankly, not aware of your conservation center. I found some soft sand and buried the eggs in the soft sand. What do people do in those kind of situations, or how do you? What advice would you give or what would you have given me had I known about and given you as a call?
Speaker 4:Well, good for you, first of all for caring enough to stop and also for trying to solve the problem. Yeah, so anyone who finds a situation like that, they can call us, and each case is a little different. We're not allowed. Unless you have a permit, you cannot disturb a natural nest. But one like that, if a female has been hit and the eggs are lying there, that's considered a rescue. So we can talk them into, talk them through how to collect those eggs, keep them alive until they get to us, and then we can plant them and incubate them in an incubator and then hatch and release them.
Speaker 4:So, yes, it's pretty amazing because all of this does help towards conserving Ontario's turtle species. We have eight species of wild freshwater turtles in Ontario and they are all, as you probably know, all listed as at risk federally. So everything that we can do to help the numbers is beneficial. But, yeah, anywhere in Ontario they can call us, we'll talk them through. Our hotline does get very, very busy, as you can imagine, so just be patient if it takes a little while to get back to you, but we'll get back to every single call sure.
Speaker 3:So what are those eight species that you mentioned?
Speaker 4:what are they? So we have? The most endangered are the the wood turtle, spotted turtle, um spiny soft shell. So they're they're, they're very much endangered. The Blandings it's federally endangered, provincially it's considered threatened. So those are also the ones that are.
Speaker 4:The wood turtle, spotted turtle and Blandings are probably the ones that are most impacted by the illegal trade. And that's a hidden threat that not many people are aware of, but it's huge and has led to decimation of population. That's why we keep locations secret, but we also teach people, you know, if you see anything suspicious, to call, because obviously it goes on behind the scenes. It's very much a black market but there's a lot of work going on to counter that. Other species we see map turtles, musk turtles, those little guys. They're very secretive but we see quite a few in the hospital.
Speaker 4:Painted turtles are the ones that everyone sees out in the world, so the smaller ones with the colorful red stripe. They're now a special concern as well. And snapping turtles a lot of people see snapping turtles out and about, so it's not legal to hunt any of them anymore. A snapping turtle was removed from that a few years back and that again, a lot of it was due to public demand, sound science and a very motivated minister at the time who pushed that through. So having a voice can make a big impact. So the eight species, and we see all eight. Obviously we see the more common ones more commonly, but we do see a fair number too. We have spotted turtle, wood, turtle blanding, spiny softshell in regularly.
Speaker 3:Right, and I recall back when oh, that would be late 60s, early 70s I was at a friend's cottage, john Bickle, john Henry Bickle, on Pigeon Lake, and there was a public lunch beside his, just over from his cottage, and a five-ton truck showed up with just basically sidewalls and they went out and they were coming back and they were catching snapping turtles to take back to the States for turtle soup.
Speaker 3:And these things were huge, I mean, and I asked them, you know like how strong are they? And he kind of took like a broom handle and put it in front of one of the large ones in there and it just reached out and snapped it in half right away, which was shocking to us. But to see something like that and to see the turtles like that and then taking them down. And then I heard other stories on Rice Lake where individuals would catch them, and this one I was told what he would do would be he would actually drill a hole in the corner of the shell and then put a chain on it and then fed it groundhogs all summer long until the Americans came up from the States and then they would sell these turtles to the Americans who went who would take them and make them into turtle soup, which I found shocking to hear that those sort of things took place, but these are the kind of stories that probably people never even heard about.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, it's kind of sickening, isn't it? But snapping turtles, you could legally hunt them until relatively recently and nobody was really tracking how many were taken.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 4:You had a legal amount you could take, but nobody was tracking and they were at the time. The argument against was how can that be sustainable in a species where we've shown scientifically that the loss of even relatively few adults you can never catch up?
Speaker 4:the population can't catch up, it's been estimated that a snapping turtle has to live 50 or 60 years to even have a chance of replacing themselves in the population. So if you're taking those adults, that's never going to you're going to lose. You're going to lose a species. So I was glad to see that um them removed from legal, being able to be legally hunted and also, as you pointed out, the way that they're, they were doing it not exactly humane, so, and it doesn't mean it's not still going on, but it's, it's um, oh yeah, but it's it's not still going on, but it's oh yeah, but there has to be a start somewhere in order to move forward and the things that I'm hearing.
Speaker 3:I know I was up near Chapelleau, ontario, and I was talking to a grader operator on a back road, basically, and we got into a conversation and he said that he was telling us that he had to get because the roads didn't look like they needed grading and he was having a break. So I said you know how come you're grading? And he said well, we have to stop grading this road by I can't remember the date in June for a period of time because to allow wood turtles to nest because it was an area where I guess wood turtles nested along the road and utilize these back roads. So there are things that are taking place and things like Northern Development Mines and MTO, ministry of Transportation Ontario, are taking those things into consideration.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely, it's moving forward, for sure. And that's again, it's where education is key. And that's not just education, that's where education is key and that's not just education of kids, but everyone Like. We've had people come up to us when snapping turtles were still legally hunted, when we would just educate on their plight and the species in general, we had people come up and say we didn't know and we don't need to eat snapping turtles. We've caught them, our families caught them for decades, but we're going to stop having heard that.
Speaker 4:So education is key and most people do want to do the right thing and unfortunately the illegal trade is financially motivated. But the good thing about that is now that penalties are getting stiffer and stiffer and I monitor that quite closely through organizations that specialize in that and yeah, they're getting very stiff, not just fines but jail sentences, because the reason I guess that it was so appealing to collect them and they would be shipped internationally was that it was good money and the penalties were a lot stiffer than, say, drugs. So now that that's changing, hopefully that will act as a bit of a deterrent, but it's a whole area that a lot of people don't know about. So, again, if we can educate the public, and they leave them a phone number of the MNR to call if they see anything suspicious. That can be followed up on. So it's again everybody working together.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know twice. I called the M&R Ministry of Natural Resources because pet stores that I was in appeared to be selling rare exotic soft-shelled turtles, and so they would send a conservation officer, a CON, to do a study, to report, to find out, to make sure everything was legitimate. And lo and behold, I don't see those rare form of turtles in the pet stores anymore.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that's reporting things like that is key. And maybe the pet store didn't know or maybe they did and it was, I'm not sure. But those types of things, plus keeping native species of any wildlife, it's not legal to keep them in captivity unless you have a permit for them. So a lot of people didn't know that too, and a lot of people too they think they're doing doing the turtle a favor by taking them in and housing them. So again through, our we got.
Speaker 4:A lot of people say, oh, I kind of had this at home for the last 10 years because they're turtles as long as they're healthy and they haven't been kept with any other turtles and we know where they came from, they can quite often be repatriated. So that feels good too Because, again, a lot of people that you know if they've had some of them have had them for decades. We have one education turtle, patty, who's now 40 something. He was bought as a hatchling from a pet store. The people again back then there wasn't really the regulations that there are now, the or the awareness, so but he's getting pretty big and he can't they. Again they came to one of our education programs and said okay, we, we, um, so we're gonna have to confess we have this snapping turtle as a pet um, but I, we're gonna hand him over to you. So he's lived with us for the last 15 years. Unfortunately, because they got him from a pet store, we don't know where he came from. He could have come from the States or anywhere in Canada. So we're not allowed to release them unless we know where they come from and very good sound reasons for that. So he lives with us. We give him as good a life as we can. Actually Probably he's getting rather fat. So I think he's doing really well A new big enclosure and a new center.
Speaker 4:And he's great for dispelling the myth of the really aggressive snapping turtle, because the only reason they're aggressive on land're not aggressive in water is because they they don't have the capacity to hide in the shell like other species. Right, and they're big and lumbering and slow. So if they weren't aggressive they would be extinct by now because they would be good prey. So, but nothing in the wild messes with an adult snapping turtle. So that's why, uh, they're aggressive, just to protect themselves, but he's, I mean.
Speaker 4:The beauty with turtles too is that they're just totally instinctual in so many ways that even if he had been raised for decades in captivity, he could theoretically be released, but only if we know where he came from and if he's cleared of any health issues and if he hasn't been with any other turtles. But they revert to the wild so quickly. It's amazing to see, and that's what makes rehabilitation and release of the hatchlings so successful, because there's no parental care. So they have what they need in them already and all we have to do is provide good care initially, get them healthy and release them to a suitable environment.
Speaker 3:So I have my pastor. He told me his kids had a turtle and they had gone away and they had plus, they also had a cat and they had somebody coming in to look after the house while they were going away I don't know what it was, whether it was on conference or on holiday or whatever and so they had somebody come in and when they got back the people looking after the house they said, oh, you're not going to believe this, but somebody must have slipped a turtle through the mail slot in the house on the front door and it was crawling around in the house. So we took the turtle and we released it back into the environment. Oh no, not knowing, it was their pet turtle that had, I guess, gotten out of its enclosure and was wandering around through the house. So they said they went for a couple of months back to this place looking for their pet, the kid's pet turtle, and some of the stories that you hear like that it's just kind of surprising.
Speaker 4:Oh, my goodness. Yes, for sure. And yeah, that's a whole other topic Pet turtles. A lot of pet turtles are obviously not native and the red eared slider is one of the most common. And we do have a problem with people releasing them Again, they think they're doing the turtle a favor and they maybe are finding, you know, they get awfully big.
Speaker 4:They buy them as hatchlings. They get very big and they're hard to take care of. So they think, oh well, we'll release them in a local wetland. But that's definitely not the thing to do. We're finding that they're most likely spreading diseases to the local population. They're out there, they're reproducing. So red-eared sliders are the exception to the rule. They kind of they'll go, survive anywhere. A lot of species are very specific about where they want to go, but they'll survive anywhere. A lot of species are very specific about where they want to go, but they'll survive anywhere.
Speaker 4:So we certainly would hope that people do not release their pet turtles, and that again comes down to education from the very start. When they're going to take a turtle as a pet, they need to know they're hard to take care of and they get big and they live a long time. So if you want a turtle for life by all means. But yeah, a lot of people buy the hatchlings and think that they are. That is their size. We always get some brought in from the wild that are released pets red-eared sliders, and we're softies, so if they're injured we'll fix them up, but then we'll find homes for them Again. Sometimes we've at any one time time we have 2,000 turtles housed with us, so we don't have a lot of space so we have to release them. But I mean, sorry, we have not released them, we have to adopt them out.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 4:But one year, I think, we had 35 or something brought in and it's hard to find homes for them. Right, brought in and it's hard to find to find homes for them. But right, yeah, it's. We don't. You know it's not their fault that they were released or that they're not a native species. So we don't euthanize them, but we certainly wouldn't release them right so.
Speaker 3:So how long does it take for turtle eggs to hatch?
Speaker 4:it depends on the temperature. So so about 60 days give or take. So we usually, if we start getting them in June, they start hatching in August and interestingly, most of the species in Ontario. The sex of the hatchling depends on the temperature that they're incubated at. So we can create any proportion that we want to. And because half of the ones getting injured on roads or killed are males and half are females, we always incubate for 50-50 males and females, and then we can be sure that we're replacing what is being lost in the population. Some of them, if they're incubated at a lower temperature, they'll take longer to hatch.
Speaker 3:So explain what you mean by 50-50 and the temperature settings for that.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, so, because generally, as a rule of thumb, a higher temperature will get more females and a lower temperature will get more males. There's exceptions to that, but we, for most species, will make sure that they're at a temperature that actually gets half males and half females, so that way, when they're released, we know that we're putting back what is lost, which is half 50% males and 50% females, and that tends to be this. This is what's called a pivotal temperature for each species. That you can be pretty sure they've shown. You know, the people have done studies and they it shows that you get a good ratio of half males, half females. The other thing you can do is incubate half at a high temperature and half at a low temperature, but it's just easier to get that one temperature that hits them both. So all our incubators are set up that way, by species and by their specific temperature, and we have one room that is a giant incubator that acts as that, because we don't have enough incubators to house all the eggs.
Speaker 3:Right. Well, I know last week was the first time that I Great. Well, I know last week was the first time that I saw a turtle on the road. It was in an area where I stopped the car and assisted it and put it back into the marsh because it got into a spot where it would have been hit. It was just a blind spot on the road and the turtle appeared to be, in my opinion, I don't know around 30, 35 years old. How do you age, or how can people age a turtle, or gauge, or how long do turtles live?
Speaker 4:Well now that is a whole topic we could spend all day on. It's been one of my fascinations since I got involved with turtles is how can we age them accurately? And the short story is there's no way to accurately age them. You can judge whether they're obviously hatchlings way to accurately age them. You can judge whether they're obviously hatchlings, juveniles or adults, by size and by the secondary sex characteristics. For instance, painted turtle males have very, very long front toenails when they're mature. Age and maturity depends on the sex and also what part of the world they come from. So the warmer areas probably mature a bit quicker, grow faster because they have more time to grow. But the age, yeah, if you go about 15 years, it would be pretty safe for most species to reach maturity. And what was I going to say? I've lost my train of thought.
Speaker 3:How long they live.
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, of course, how long they live. Yeah, that's the whole basis of it. So you cannot accurately age them. They do get growth rings, sort of like tree growth rings, but they're not accurate really and also, if they're old enough the rings will wear off. They don't have teeth, so you can't age them by their teeth. And if they lived thousands of years you could age them that way, just like you age fossils.
Speaker 4:But we think they live most species, 100 or more years. But you cannot accurately age that and there's been nobody following them for long enough to get the accurate age. But Blanding's turtles have been followed for quite a while and they know that a turtle that they started following that was mature when they started, so 15, 20 years old, and they've been following it for 70 years. So that's we know those. That turtle is at least 90, 95 years old and we always thought that snapping turtles lived a lot longer than Blanding's turtles.
Speaker 4:So yeah, it's a bit of a mystery and I've talked to oh, everybody, everyone, the carbon dating, everything in this. There's just no way to accurately age them. But we know, definitely snapping turtles put over 100 years, some of the other species may be a bit less like painted turtles, maybe closer to 50 years, but, yeah, long-lived species and but they really have to be, uh, that long-lived in order to keep a population healthy. As we're mentioning that it takes many, many decades to have a chance of replacing themselves in the population. You got to live a chance of replacing themselves in the population. You got to live a long time to really keep that population healthy and that works for them. That life history works. Until humans are added into the mix and you start losing a lot of the adults, then it's yeah, you tip the balance and it's hard to catch up.
Speaker 3:And Sue. One of the things that I found is most of the turtles that I assist when they're on the road. And well, first of all should mention that I had a discussion with Stefan, my brother-in-law, who was talking about how, because he was a truck driver how can people hit things like turtles I mean, they're so slow and everything else on the road. I said, stefan, it's not the first car. You have a row of cars all in a row. The first one can see the turtle, but the next one's wondering why is that car swerving? And all of a sudden it's too late. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4:Exactly, and you know there's luckily very few people who would hit them deliberately. It's just that sometimes a small one, it can look like a rock in the road or a pothole. People may not even notice it. And snapping turtles? Of course they're big, you can see them, but sometimes there's no way to safely avoid them without causing a vehicle collision. And we see a lot of injuries on snapping turtles that reflect that. Where people they go, I don't know what to do. Do. So they straddle them and the turtle isn't killed, but the top of the shell is scraped away as a result and often, because their head can't retract in the shell, the head is badly damaged as well. So, yeah, it's, and I think the more people that are aware the better. And you see people all the time.
Speaker 4:When I stop for a turtle now to help it across the road, always in the direction it's going by the way, always, um, often I'm not the first or I'll stop and someone else will pull in behind and uh and stop too. So a lot of people are aware and the number one thing we always say if you're going to stop and help a turtle across the road, please make sure your safety is number one, just because we don't want people getting injured helping a turtle. But again, more and more people are aware, so they're slowing down when they're going through wetlands or they're keeping their eyes open and then, if they can safely do so, they're stopping and helping them across the road. And the reason we do it in the direction that they're going is because they know where they want to go. They haven't survived for millions of years by getting lost. So they, they know where they want to go, even if it makes no sense to us. So the the water might be at their back, but they may be going forward. Maybe they're going to a different wetland, maybe they're going to find a mate or to do some do their nesting. So always in the direction they're going, or else they'll just go back again.
Speaker 4:But we have this. I mean there's so many kind people out there. I've had young kids bring in turtles in their. They found injured on road and they're on a dirt bike. We've had truck drivers carry turtles in their truck and bring them into us. We've had. So everybody kind of wants to help, I think. And, as I say, it's very rare that they're hit deliberately. It's just they cross roads and they're slow and they're not very visible.
Speaker 3:So and Sue. One of the other things that I find is like this one stopping turtle that I dealt with last week just absolutely covered with moss everywhere growing on it, and the other thing is a lot of the other ones now I see a lot of leeches on a lot of the turtles. Is there something that people need to do, or to concern, or just allow them to continue on the way they're going without dealing with any of those sorts of things?
Speaker 4:Yeah, most of those things are natural. You know they spend especially coming out of hibernation. Sometimes they look like they've got half a landscape on their back, They've got mud or they've got moss or in the summertime even they have moss. It looks like flowing hair. But that's natural. And leeches there's always leeches out there. They'll hook on Occasionally. They can become. We've had a couple brought in that were the turtles were very debilitated and the leeches out there they'll uh hook on. Occasionally they can become. Uh, we've had a couple brought in that were the turtles were very debilitated and the leeches were kind of overwhelming them, um, and who knows what came first, but uh, there were huge numbers of leeches. So in that case we'll we'll remove the leeches to uh give the turtles a break. But um, and we don't know exactly if they transmit diseases. It's possible. But leeches exist out there. They are part of the wild wetlands, so for the most part they hitch a ride and get off and that's fine.
Speaker 3:So, case by case, yeah, Well, I have to tell one story, otherwise it would be not appropriate if I didn't. When I was Minister of Natural Resources I had a new chief of staff, kim, come in and we one of the Pierre who's been on a podcast a couple of times wanted to play a little bit of a practical joke, bit of a practical joke. So what we had happen was we had somebody call in saying that a rare yellow spotted turtle had been hit on the highway and they wanted to rehabilitate it. So we then had somebody I had contacts at U of T contact the minister Kim's office and say look, we understand, the rare turtle has been exact. We're enacting section four of policy, number 4756. And we are demanding the rights to this turtle to rehabilitate it.
Speaker 3:And of course Kim's starting to get a bit concerned. So then I had somebody in the premier's office saying the premier has heard about this rare spotted yellow turtle and is demanding a briefing note on it. Now Kim's getting in a big panic and this is going on. This poor person it was kind of initiation break in and of course all of us are just she's in a panic. Well, the premier's office is calling now and we have to get this briefing note? Where is this briefing note? And now the U of T is in here and they're demanding the rights to the rehabilitation of this rare turtle, and it's going on and on and on.
Speaker 3:So finally, after probably a week and a half, maybe two weeks, we took a. It was just a rubber turtle and we painted yellow spots on it and put it in her desk. And then I sent her a note. I said, kim, enough is enough. Take care of this rare spotted yellow turtle. It's in your top right drawer of your desk. And she opened it up and found this rubber turtle. I don't know how to talk about it today.
Speaker 4:Oh, that's hilarious. Well, it shows how much she cares, I guess Good for her.
Speaker 3:So Sue tell us how can people find out more information about the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre, or how can they get in touch with you, or how can they contact you if they find that they need a turtle that needs rehabilitated.
Speaker 4:Okay, well, number one thing is, during the busy season, call rather than emailing. If you find an injured turtle, call, because sometimes the emails get a little backed up because the calls are priority and that's 705-741-5000. So that's the number to call if you find an injured turtle. We also have various other options when you call in. So if you need information on if you found a nesting turtle, what to do, which is basically leave them alone, if you have a nest you want to protect, how to do it. So there's all kinds of informational things there. For general information on what we do, our website is a good source OntarioTurtleca. For general information. We have just our info at OntarioTurtleca. And then, if you want to get involved in helping out with the Turtle Taxi, we always need more volunteers, even though we have so many During the busy time. We always need more because there's so many rides a day and most people will combine a trip to pick up a turtle or deliver a turtle with what, where they're going and everyone's, you know, traveling a lot in the summer. So that works really well. And that's a turtle taxi at ontarioturtleca. Um, you can come and visit us. Uh, you can again call us and get more information, you can visit our website. We're always looking for volunteers. We have volunteers not only to help bring the turtles to us, but also to help take care of the 2,000 turtles we have in care at any one time.
Speaker 4:The beauty of the Turtle Taxi Program is there's no commitment time. The beauty of the Turtle Taxi program is there's no commitment. So we have a mass email that goes out. If a turtle needs a ride, say, okay, ride needed from X to X or relay or part of the ride, and if you happen to be going that direction, you get in touch and say, hey, I'm going there, I'll take it, and if not, you just ignore it. So that way nobody is committed to a certain day or time.
Speaker 4:So that works really well. But, yeah, always happy to answer questions and always happy to meet people. If they come on in. You can drop in anytime. We do have a little store on site that's part of our fundraising initiative with great turtle T-shirts, caps, everything like that. We have an online store, so lots going on all the time. As I said, we just moved in, so we're just working on the outside right now, but we do have the signs up now, so anyone local is welcome to come in and we look forward to, yeah, answering questions or helping anyone out with their turtle projects.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you very much, Sue. We very much appreciate you taking the time and enlightening us on turtles and things to do and how to deal with turtles should you come across them in the province of Ontario, because it's a long time history, as you mentioned. They've been around for thousands of years and just something a little bit different that people are learning about out there under the canopy.
Speaker 4:Well, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on and I look forward to talking to you again sometime.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. I really appreciate that Okay take care.
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