Turtle love: 10,000 hatchlings to be released in Thames River area

Thousands of tiny baby turtles are getting a shot at life in the wild, thanks to a program operated through the London-area conservation authority.

About 10,000 hatchlings, including 6,000 spiny softshell turtles, will be released this year into the area drained by the Thames River through the conservation efforts of the Southern Ontario at Risk Reptiles program at the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority, which is marking one of its best years ever for protecting eggs and releasing hatchlings.

Without the human touch, including egg incubation in a lab, it would be another story for the endangered reptiles, said Scott Gillingwater, a species-at-risk biologist with the conservation authority.

Flooding, natural predators and human activity all threaten turtle nesting sites, he said.

“If we left nests alone, we would have a zero-per-cent success rate” giving the tiny creatures a shot at life in the wild, said Gillingwater.

Besides spiny softshell turtles, the intervention involves hatchlings from seven other turtle species considered at risk, including the Blanding’s turtle and the spotted turtle.

Gillingwater, a 30-year veteran of work to save turtles, said the conservation program began to use artificial incubation in 2007 and switched entirely to that the following year.

Earlier, efforts to save turtles involved moving nests out of harm’s way and keeping close tabs on them, with a much lower success rate.

With lab incubation of the eggs, “we now have an 89- to 96-per-cent success rate, so we can put a lot more young into the wild, allowing us to hedge our bets,” he said.

Adult softshell turtles are less vulnerable than other turtle species involved in the conservation effort because they spend so much time in the water, Gillingwater said.

“They rarely cross roads, or go into agricultural fields. It’s the egg and juvenile stage that is most at risk,” he noted.

But for Blanding’s and spotted turtles, “we need to ensure the wetlands aren’t being drained, ensure that they’re not hit on roads, and all the other threats that affect an animal that moves out of their wetland habitat.”

Even with the program’s help, however, the odds are heavily stacked against the tiny turtles living well into adulthood, although the math still helps their numbers.

Based on a guess of a one-per-cent survival rate until age 15 when they reach maturity and can breed, the release of 5,000 to 6,000 hatchlings might produce 50 to 60 adults, Gillingwater said.

“If you do that each year, you can continually grow the population,” he said, adding it could reach the point where fewer nests need to be monitored than the 250 they keep an eye on now.