A Painted Turtle is returned home after its injuries have healed.
Do you like roadtrips? How about travelling the province to help save injured turtles – or take them home once they’ve recovered? KTTC’s turtle taxi volunteers do just that!
This past season Megan travelled a total of 1400km transporting recovered turtles back to their home territories for release. Seven Snapping Turtle hatchlings were returned to their home in Bobcaygeon; 1 painted turtle to Belleville and another to Brockville; and a baby snapping turtle to Huntsville. On this last trip she also made a pit stop to pick up an injured adult snapping turtle to bring back to the centre.
In her own words “It was an amazing experience taking these turtles to their destinations, for some back to their home, for the hatchlings, tasting freedom for the first time. Having cared for them for months before their releases it was quite a sight to watch them take off into the water. Since starting at the KTTC I’ve learned so much, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to continue to learn about these fascinating creatures.”
Megan has been feeding the turtles at the KTTC since October of last year. In that time she has also volunteered at outreach events (trying to overcome her shyness), cleaned tanks and the enormous amounts of rocks used in the turtle ponds. She started volunteering with the centre to gain some experience working with wildlife to supplement to her Trent university Biology education. “I knew next to nothing about turtles and was quite intimidated at first” she says, “but the other volunteers made me feel welcome and their enthusiasm and knowledge about everything turtle related was quite contagious and I quickly became a turtle lover.”
For more information about volunteering at KTTC visit the Get Involved pages of our website.
