Saving a Turtle Takes Team Work - Episode 56

There's a networks of people in Ontario working to save injured turtles and return them to their native habitats.  Susanne and Manfred found out how it works when they came into close proximity of a snapping turtle.

Join them on the journey to the Turtle Hospital. 

If you would like to receive my weekly Saturday morning email that contains my original stories, Canadian book recommendation, new barn quilt design and a recipe or cycling route (depending on the season), sign up here. 

Follow me on Facebook and Instagram

My website to join in our barn quilt painting experiences is www.crazy8barn.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Happy to Be Canadian Podcast. I'm Suzanne Spence Wilkins, a writer who lives in rural southwestern Ontario, Canada. Each week I share an original, very short story that will have you laughing and reflecting on the simple moments of our lives. Now, on to today's episode. Happy to be Canadian, episode 56. Saving a turtle takes teamwork. Manford had an unfortunate incident with a snapping turtle this week. No, it's not what you're thinking. In fact, a snapping turtle's bite is not as traumatic or commonplace as myths would have us believe. Snappers aren't aggressive. They just have few options to protect themselves. Their rugged shells aren't big enough to allow the turtles to pull their head and legs back under cover. So they snap at danger on land rather than retreat like they would near water. It is the threat of the snap rather than the contact that the turtle finds most useful. You, however, do not want to use any of your body parts as a defense against a striking turtle. Reliable reports say, if bitten, it will hurt and likely you will bleed. Manford did not get bitten. With the front wheel of the truck, he clipped the small turtle that was burrowing into the sand and grass near an equipment shed. Manfred hadn't noticed the little guy as he backed up to park beside the barn. It was only when he stepped out of the truck that he noticed a lump a few feet in front of the tire. It was easy to identify the turtle. The rugged shell with its jagged hind edge and a long tail with ridges resembling a small stegosaurus meant it was a young snapping turtle. And it was not moving. The turtle's head looked misshapen, and there was a split more than an inch long at the front of its shell, traveling back towards the center hump. It didn't look good for the turtle. Manford picked up the limp beast and placed him out of the way under a cod collar fir tree. The turtle stayed put. Manford finished his errand and came home. When he walked in the house, I could tell something was wrong. He said he had hit the little turtle and wondered if there's anything we could do. I googled Turtle Rescue in Ontario and found the injured turtle hotline at the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre, located in Peterborough, about a six-hour drive from us. I was doubtful that this was the place to contact, but there didn't seem to be any other options. I called. All their support people were busy, but the message promised a call back. There was an information page on their website that said to put an injured turtle in a box without water or food and bring it indoors if possible. Manford went to retrieve the turtle. The snapper had not moved from beside the tree trunk, although it did shuffle its claws when Manford placed it in the box. The crack in its shell had oozed some type of liquid and had moistened the dirt on top. The call came back from the turtle rescue, and the woman said that they had a drop-off locations at veterinarians in Comoka or London, whichever was closer to us. They already had a turtle at the London location awaiting transport, so I said someone would drop off the turtle there that day. She was asking me questions about the turtle that I couldn't answer. So luckily Manfred arrived back and I told her about the turtle. It was still alive but not moving much. I described the broken shell and the head that looked like it had had pressure applied to it. She said to bring it in, dead or alive, they take them all, as sometimes they can retrieve eggs from female turtles, and other times it helps with research and documentation of turtles in different areas of the province. In only a few minutes Manfred was on his way to London with the turtle. The snapper had no idea how lucky he was that the last of the soybean fields had been planted the evening before his injury. Manford wondered if the big machinery had scared the turtle out of the field or possibly damaged it. That could explain why the turtle was in the barnyard. Snapping turtles spend most of their lives in or near bodies of water, large or small, pressure polluted, it doesn't matter to them. The barnyard is equidistant between Lake Erie and a creek in the gully to the north. Leaving the Lake Erie shoreline would require a climb up a clay cliff through a field and across a road, while a trek from the creek would be uphill and across an open field. Neither route would be a sprint for a turtle. Snapping turtles leave their wetland habitats to lay their eggs in patches of gravel, sometimes on the shoulder of roads, and that can lead to collisions with vehicles. Judging by the five-inch shell length of this turtle, it was only about two years old, and they mature around ten years old, so nesting didn't make sense. Although snapping turtles can live as long as healthy humans, some making it to the century mark, only one percent of hatchlings make it to adulthood. That's why it's such a loss to the population when a healthy turtle dies. Saving them is important, and the turtle hospital at the conservation center in Peterborough is doing remarkable work. By 2009, they admitted between 50 and 80 turtles a year, and it grew from there. In 2023, they took in 1,900 turtles, incubated 7,100 eggs, and released 3,400 turtles to their homeland wetlands. They have over 800 turtle taxi volunteers who transport injured turtles from a network of first responders across the province. These first responders are often veterinarians who receive supplies and training and volunteer to stabilize injured turtles before transport to the turtle hospital. When Manford delivered the turtle to the specified veterinarian in London, he filled out a form regarding the geographic location where the injury occurred and other details. He checked the box to inform us if the turtle survives and is to be released back into its home territory. So while we remain unaware but hopeful of the turtle's health progress, we look forward to receiving an email in the future telling us that this turtle is coming home. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Happy to Be Canadian. If you would like to receive an email each Saturday morning that features new short stories and more, you can sign up on my website, www.crazy8barn.com. If you would like to meet me in person and discover another way that we tell our rural stories, please join me at a Barn Quilt Painting Workshop at our beautiful eight-sided barn in Palmyra, Ontario, along the north shore of Lake Erie. You can find me on Facebook and Instagram at Crazy8 Barn. If you are an Apple podcast listener and enjoyed this podcast, I would appreciate it if you could leave me a favorable review. And that lets Apple know that Happy to Be Canadian is a valuable podcast and it shares it with other potential listeners. I'm Suzanne Spence Wilkins, and I'm Happy to Be Canadian.