Our amazing elders
(the turtles!)
Since coming back from the beach, Bea and I have been thinking and learning about turtles. We floated in the Haw River twice this week, and both times we saw sliders basking on rocks and poking their heads above water. We love turtles—in fact, when Bea was younger, my #1 way of motivating her to keep walking was to say “but if we keep going, we might find a turtle!”
We have found both water-dwelling turtles and box turtles on our adventures. We’ve rescued a few turtles from the roadside and our driveway too. But we don’t remove them from their homes or keep turtles as pets, as much as we might be tempted.
Turtles are amazing creatures that have been around a long time—close turtle relations were trudging around during the time of the dinosaurs! Today’s oldest turtle species are sea turtles, which have been around for 100 million years.
Individual turtles can live a long time—some species of turtles can live to more than one hundred, but even the box turtles you find in your yard can live to be eighty years old or more. That means they are your elders, and they deserve respect!
Turtles feature importantly in Native American and Chinese mythology too. Here is Bea’s retelling of the Chinese creation myth: “Once, there was nothing but sea. The Jade Emperor looked down and said, 'We need a world.’ He sent Turtle down to make an earth. Next, he sprinkled soil and seeds on the turtle’s shell. And then he made it rain on the seeds and soil. They began to grow, and grow, and grow. Soon they formed a piece of land. He created the humans and put them on the land.”
Tortoises are a kind of turtle that live only on land, and they have bigger legs and a more domed shell. (They’re sort of the toads of the frog world.) Here’s a video about Jonathan the giant tortoise, who is at least 189 years old (and probably the oldest living land animal), getting his first bath (why now, we wondered)!
Turtles are also amazing because they have developed so many survival skills. As Skipper pointed out in Tuesday’s comments, nesting sea turtles not only take advantage of the light provided by the full moon, but also the higher tides that make it easier to get to the soft sand where they dig their nests (a supermoon, like we saw at the beach, causes extra-high tides). Though sea turtles nest at all times during nesting season (May to August in North Carolina), the ones that choose the full moon have set their hatchlings up for a somewhat easier path—in 55-60 days, when they hatch, they will be more likely to have the light of a full (or near-full moon) as well as the higher tides.
Another turtle survival skill? Turtles breathe through their butts! This is a Frozen 2 factoid, and it’s true! That’s how they survive hibernation at the bottom of a cold, cold pond (box turtles can survive being literally frozen, but the pond or lake or river water actually insulates other kinds of turtles from freezing. They draw oxygen from the water over their highly vascular butts). You can read more about it in this great, funny article in The Conversation.
Despite all their amazing qualities, more than half of the turtle species on earth are endangered—and two-thirds are at risk. The top reasons for turtle endangerment are habitat loss, unsafe fishing practices, over-consumption for food and medicine, climate change, pollution, invasive species, and use of turtles as pets. All of these are, of course, caused by humans.
When you cause a problem, no matter how big or how small, Bea says there are a few steps you need to take:
First, you need to find out about the problem.
You need to find out if you did it, or how you made it worse. If you did it, you need to take responsibility and not blame others.
You need to find out what you can do to fix the problem. Then, do all you can fix it!
Not everything can be fixed by one person, so if you need it, go ahead and ask for help.
Here are some ways we learned that you can help our friends the turtles:
1. Pick up trash at the beach, and limit or eliminate the plastic you use. Never take plastic bags from the grocery store, because those often wind up in the ocean and look (to turtles) just like yummy jellyfish.
2. Spread the word about turtle hatchlings! Turn off outdoor lights, which are bad for all kinds of animals, but especially turtles (even if you live far from the ocean, this is a good practice—it saves energy too). Stay far away from turtle nests, and never bother a hatchling or any kind of sea turtle. If you see a turtle that needs help, call your local turtle patrol!
3. If you eat seafood, go for sustainable or turtle-safe seafood choices. If you fish near turtles, don’t cast when you see a turtle; wait for it to swim away. You can also fish with barbless or turtle-safe hooks.
4. Turtles mature slowly, but once they do they lay eggs for the rest of their long lives. So, if you remove a turtle from the wild to keep as a pet, you are potentially removing the mom of hundreds and hundreds of turtles from the ecosystem. It’s best to let wild animals stay in their wild habitats.
5. If you rescue a turtle from the middle of the road (this is actually really dangerous, so only have an adult do this), just put it where it was trying to go, out of immediate danger. If you take it to your nice yard or a park or a forest, it will just spend the whole rest of its life trying to get back to that roadside. So don’t do that.
6. Before you leave the beach, knock down sandcastles and fill any holes you dug. These can become obstacles to mamas and hatchlings. If you have any toddlers nearby, this is a good task for them. They love knocking stuff down.
Read more about turtles here! And here!
We’re curious: do you have any favorite turtle facts or stories?
Very informative post! I was guilty in the past of removing turtles from their neighbors! Learned long ago how hard it was for them to navigate their new surroundings. Keep up the good work B&B
Thank you for the wonderful list of steps to take to protect turtles!
I believe my brother, Sam, and I , as very young children, unwittingly contributed to the endangerment of box turtles. If only we had had this information sixty-plus years ago! I remember walking down our lane with our wagon one summer day collecting every box turtle in sight except one. Our goal was to start a turtle farm. Honestly, I am not sure what we meant by this. The one box turtle that escaped our kidnap was in an older woman's yard. She fussed at us and told us that the turtles protected her tomato plants from being eaten by insects so we may not remove any and to stay out of her yard. When we had collected about 10 turtles we went to our neighbor's backyard and created a habitat in their freshly filled sandbox. Using their garden hose we created what to us was a turtle paradise. We made little pools and structures, and tunnels for the turtles. If I remember correctly, once the project was completed, we left the turtles in their new habitat, took our wagon and went home. I am sure our neighbors were not pleased with our handiwork, all I can remember is how much fun we had that day!