By Abigail Lindner
The morning after a night of rain, I’m alerted about an intruder in the backyard. The intruder is a turtle digging through the recently laid wood chips around the house. They have found the pile of yet-to-be-used chips at the edge of the property. The wet brown wood shavings stick to their thick legs, spiky tail, and black shell. Slowly, they shovel through the chips with their head and front legs, creating a deeper divot in which to nestle. When they see my sister and me, they partially tuck their head into their shell, slick from the late evening and early morning showers.
A quick Google search brings me to a page from Mass Audubon about the turtle species that live in Massachusetts. There are several, including the yellow-throated Blanding’s turtle, the tiny bog turtle, the black- and yellow-speckled eastern box turtle, and the olive-shelled and yellow-striped painted turtle. After checking, from a safe distance, for any of colorful markings on the throat, sides of the head, or shell, observing three ridges on the carapace — semi-discernible under the chips and rain — and noting the spiky tail, I guess that the turtle rummaging in the background is a snapping turtle.
My mom tells stories about encountering snapping turtles growing up. Growing up, she would go to a pond near her house where snapping turtles sometimes swam. If someone held a stick close to one, the turtle would lunge forward with a long neck and snap the stick with their strong beak.
Another search answers the next question on my mind: Why is this snapping turtle roaming through the yard? According to Tufts Wildlife Clinic, part of Tufts University in Medford, snapping turtles are commonly seen wandering from their aquatic ecosystems during mating and breeding season; females may trek to humans’ yards to lay eggs. That this snapping turtle has been creating holes in various patches of dirt and wood chips around the house lends support to the new assumption that the visitor is female.
The local Mass Audubon wildlife sanctuary tells me over the phone that, if the turtle chooses a spot in the yard to lay her eggs, she’ll leave right after. It’s best to leave her alone. (In general, this is good advice for interactions with any type of wildlife.)
My sister and I watch the snapping turtle navigate the wood chip pile for several minutes. Then, perhaps dissatisfied with what she has found, the turtle crawls down the hill and lumbers away to investigate other potential nest spots in the yard. I go inside. Some time later, I look out the front windows and see that the turtle has made her way to the front yard, then to the road. She ambles along the perimeter of the cul-de-sac until she reaches my neighbor’s mailbox. After inspecting the wooden pole for a moment, she treks toward the back of the neighbor’s house. She hasn’t reappeared in my backyard since.
MassWildlife reports that the snapping turtle is not endangered, threatened, or of special concern in the state. Their population stability and survival is attributable in part to snapping turtles being generalists; that is, they can adapt to and thrive in a wide range of environments. In the United States, snapping turtles’ territory stretches from the East Coast to the Rocky Mountains. This high level of ecological flexibility is not the case for most of the turtle species in Massachusetts.
As with many animals, human activity has negatively impacted turtle populations. The smallest turtle species in North America, the bog turtle, for instance, has been classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and as threatened by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The bog turtle lives only in the eastern United States and favors wet meadows and bogs. Land development for housing or retail has fragmented or eliminated many of these bog turtle-friendly habitats. The rarity of the bog turtle has also made the remaining members valuable prizes for poachers. A patchwork of conservation efforts by environmental organizations and state governments have endeavored to rehabilitate and maintain wetland habitats for bog turtles. The story is the same for Blanding’s turtles, diamondback terrapins, and other turtle species in Massachusetts.
As I watched the female snapping turtle explore the yard, I thought about human-wildlife coexistence. How can we, human beings, exist without endangering or eliminating other species? What do you do when a turtle has shown a liking for your yard as a nursery for her eggs? When a family of mice admires your woodworking skills so much that they hang their hats in your old sandbox? When a sparrow builds a nest in the corner of your shed?
These are individual-level questions. More difficult to answer are the questions that involve other parties: questions about land alteration, housing development, road construction. In making it easier for humans to live in this world, are we making it harder for other species to do the same?
I hope that, despite the extensive housing developments in and around my neighborhood that are shrinking her natural habitat, the snapping turtle who contemplated my yard’s suitability found a place to make her nest for her eggs this season.
Learn more about turtle conservation efforts in Massachusetts:
- Bog Turtle Conservation Plan with Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife
- Conservation Easements from the New England Forestry Foundation
- Working Lands for Wildlife with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
- Turtle Conservation with Zoo New England’s Conservation Society
- Turtle Rescue League in Southbridge, MA
Thumbnail photo credit: Mark Stebnicki via Pexels
Sources
- Chanatry, H. (2021, November 1). Inside the effort to save a tiny, endangered turtle in western Mass. wbur. https://www.wbur.org/news/2021/11/01/endangered-bog-turtles-massachusetts.
- Cummings Veterinary Medical Center. (n.d.). What to do if you found a snapping turtle. Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://wildlife.tufts.edu/found-wildlife/sick-injured-reptile-amphibian/snapping-turtle/.
- JMM. (2018, March 12). Rising temperatures could benefit the snapping turtle. Population and Community Ecology (PACE) Lab. https://pace.inhs.illinois.edu/2018/03/12/25/.
- Mass Audubon. (n.d). Turtle species in Massachusetts. Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://www.massaudubon.org/learn/nature-wildlife/reptiles-amphibians/turtles/turtle-species-in-massachusetts.
- Mass.gov. (n.d.). Guide to helping Massachusetts turtles. Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://www.mass.gov/guides/guide-to-helping-massachusetts-turtles.
- National Park Service. (n.d.). Snapping turtles. Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/snapping-turtles.htm.
- The Nature Conservancy. (2020, May 11). Bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii). Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/animals-we-protect/bog-turtle/.
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. (n.d.). Listed species believed to or known to occur in Massachusetts. Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://ecos.fws.gov/ecp/report/species-listings-by-state?stateAbbrev=MA&stateName=Massachusetts&statusCategory=Listed.
- van Dijk, P.P. (2011). Glyptemys muhlenbergii. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Retrieved June 9, 2022, from https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/4967/97416755.