Snapping turtle hatchlings were released into their habitat in the Rideau River on Monday after being incubated for the last two months. In the spring, a female snapping turtle came up and laid her nest on the volleyball court behind the Nesbitt Biology Building at Carleton University. Fifty-three eggs were discovered. A graduate researcher from Carleton University was called in to help and incubated the eggs. “It’s not a great location, unfortunately. I got contacted by the campus safety department to go and salvage the nests,” says Charlotte Galloway, graduate researcher at Carleton University. “I’ve been holding on to these eggs for the summer and 65 days later we have some sweet little babies that arrived.” Eggs take about 65 days to incubate at 28 C to 29 C, says Galloway. Thirty-two eggs have hatched so far. The rest are still hatching and will be released in the coming days. “These are common snapping turtles. The female came from the Rideau River, which is located here on campus in the south section and they’re going back to the same body of water that the nest was closest to,” says Galloway. Alison Ochs, a postdoctoral researcher who attended the event, says she’s worked with Galloway before and when she was told about the turtle releasing, she had to come check it out. “I’ve never worked with the babies or the eggs, so this was a really cool experience,” says Ochs, “I’ve been really excited about all of the turtle work going on here and keeping track of what’s going on and all of the amazing research happening.” Snapping turtles are listed Special Concern species under The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and Species at Risk in Ontario, which means they are vulnerable and require monitoring to prevent them from becoming endangered species. Katherine Di Iorio, a grad student at Carleton University, says even though turtles aren’t her species of study, it’s a big community and she’s really excited to see how it works and gain some experience in this. “We just like to show support and engage in the community and draw attention to the endangered species and climate change and things like that,” says Di Iorio. “Turtles are kind of struggling right now,” Galloway said. “It’s important that we do what we can to help them. I encourage anybody who has a little soft spot for turtles to find out more about local organizations and how they can help with nesting and salvage and any kind of community work they can to help with the turtles.”
