Our field site provides the perfect habitat to study turtle behaviour.

Turtles tracked by OTCC start out as 5 g hatchlings. We raise them until they are large enough to hold a 5 g transmitter.

Once they reach 100 g or 300 g, headstarted juvenile Blanding’s turtles are ready for release!

Juvenile turtles are very secretive, and there is a lot that is unknown about where they live and what they do during the season. This knowledge is essential to their conservation. Knowledge of best practices for headstarting was also in its infancy when we started this project, and many knowledge gaps needed to be filled. Since we incubate almost 10,000 eggs annually, we wanted to make sure that they had the maximum chance of survival, and of adding to the adult population.

The questions we wanted to answer were:

• What is the behaviour and habitat preference for the juveniles?
• Do headstarted turtles behave the same as wild-hatched turtles?
• Do headstarted turtles survive comparably to wild-hatched turtles?
• What is the best release strategy to maximize success for these headstarts once they are in the wild?

We have answered these questions during our many years in the field and have published the results in peer-reviewed journals. We have found that the headstarted turtles act just like the wild-hatched ones after released. We found that after an acclimation period, they travelled and grew just like the wild-hatched ones. We found that release site makes a huge difference, and they have a better chance of survival if released separately and as far apart as possible. Also, we found they have a better chance of survival if released away from land, but in areas of shallow, swampy water, with heavy vegetation. We found that releasing them straight from our facility (a ‘hard’ release) had the same results as if they were held outside for a period of time to get used to temperature changes, sounds, and weather patterns (a ‘softer’ release). Most importantly, we found their survival to be comparable to their wild-hatched counterparts. We concluded that headstarting indeed is a viable conservation strategy in itself. While saving and releasing adults of course has the maximum effect on a population, releasing hatchings and juveniles is also going to add to the adult population.

On the strength of this, we removed all transmitters in 2024. We will still visit the field site intermittently, mostly to follow these turtles through to full maturity (currently they are ‘sub-adults’). This is a much less intensive study, and involves catching them by hand, to check in on them every so often.

While we were out in the field, we became very familiar with all the other species of turtles at the pristine site and conducted populations surveys opportunistically. The results of this study are also being published, and the paper has been accepted for publication in Canadian Field Naturalist. It shows some interesting population demographics and discusses some relevant topics such as the sex ratio of these turtles in the wild.

An ecopassage in the process of being constructed. Photo Credit Kari Gunson

Turtle Survival Alliance India project also conducts much fieldwork. Shown is Shailendra Singh, who is the lead on this project. OTCC has visited their sites in India to learn from their headstarting projects and exchange ideas. In 2017 the Turtle Survival Alliance conference in Charleston, USA, included a full day session discussing headstarting projects globally. OTCC was a participant and presenter at this conference.

While there are many similarities between the fieldwork we are doing at OTCC and the work TSA India is doing, Shailendra pointed out that it is much more difficult to get field technicians at their field sites in India. The presence of crocodiles and tigers at the field sites, that have been known to eat people, could have something to do with it!