| from the March 23, 2009 Newsletter, issued from near
Natchez, Mississippi: RED-EARED TURTLES COMING ASHORE In St. Catharine NWR I lost count of the number of Red-eared Turtles, or Sliders, TRACHEMYS SCRIPTA, seen emerging from water and scrambling to higher ground, often with me not far away and moving. Typically our basking Red-ears slide off their perch into the water as soon as they see you within rifle-shot distance, and for good reason. I read that egg-laying is from May through early July, but often such pronouncements are made by specialists living much farther north, so I can't discount the idea that these Red-ears were looking for someplace to lay eggs. You can see one hastily emerging onto a levee above. from the March 17, 2002 Newsletter, issued from
near Natchez, Mississippi: I say "sneak" because I wanted to see what kinds of turtles were basking there, and if you don't sneak up on them, those turtles will plop into the water as soon as they glimpse you. This time I approached them crouching through thick bamboo, inch by inch... but they still plopped before I could see them. However, the day was so pleasant that I decided to just sit at the water's edge. Before long heads began poking above the water's surface, and eventually big critters with blackish shells and spraddled legs began pulling themselves onto shore. Identification of pond turtles can be pretty hard. In books the various species look easy to distinguish because their shells bear all kinds of characteristic designs and colors. However, in the field those shells typically are mantled with mud and/or algae. Nonetheless, I could see that these were Red-eared Turtles, CHRYSEMYS SCRIPTA ELEGANS, which are relatively easy to identify because they bear red splotches on their heads where you'd expect ears to appear. These are the same species commonly sold in pet stores. As one book says, "Millions are sold, but few reach adulthood." I sat there until 8 Red-eareds lined up along shore beside me (Sitting still, I was invisible... ). Red-eared young eat water insects, snails, tadpoles and the like but larger ones are mainly vegetarian. Probably digestion in the turtles' intestines proceeds faster when sunlight's warmth helps it along. As I sat there basking with the turtles I tried to imagine how pleasant it must be when a turtle emerges from chilly water, then feels himself gradually warmed and energized not only by the sun above, but also from inside as the sun's warmth stirs digestion into gear, sending a flush of food energy through the body. It must be a kind of awakening a human can hardly imagine. from the October 2, 2005 Newsletter, issued from
the Sierra Nevada Foothills east of Sacramento, California: Moreover, the nearest pond must be half a mile away with a lot of steep slopes and scorched vegetation atop hard-baked, cracking ground between here and there. The river is about half a mile below us but it's whitewater. There are trickling streams here and there, but they are very steep with many waterfalls, and just not where Red-ears are found. Red-ears are inhabitants of sluggish rivers and streams, ponds, swamps and lakes with soft bottoms and dense vegetation -- nothing we have near here. This turtle was dusty as if he'd lugged his big shell a long way, and I think maybe he'd done just that. My Audubon field guide to the reptiles and amphibians clearly shows that in North America Red-eared Turtles are mostly a southeastern US species, getting no closer to California than eastern New Mexico. Clearly this is a case similar to what happened with bullfrogs: Both these species have been introduced far from their native homelands. Apparently Red-eared Turtles are common in this area. In fact, I read that now they are found in South Korea, Guam, Thailand, Germany, France, South Africa, Israel and Australia. They're also native from the US Southeast south through Central America into Venezuela. One reason Red-eared Turtles have spread so far beyond their native area is that they are the original "pet turtle." If, when you were a kid, you told the pet-store clerk you wanted "a plain old turtle to keep in a shallow fishbowl with some rocks," it's almost certain you got a Red-eared Turtle, and almost certain it died not long afterwards. Kids nowadays of course wouldn't settle for a general fishbowl turtle, plus U.S. government regulations now require turtles to be at least 4 inches long before they can be sold as pets. Nowadays a kid would want a turtle, say, that is lemon yellow with pink eyes. Well, if they got such a thing, it would still be the Red-eared Turtle, because turtle breeders have developed a variety of Red-ear "color morphs," mostly in pastel colors. Actually those lemon yellow ones with pink eyes are pretty common. This isn't to say that Red-ears are common everyplace. Over large areas their numbers have been decimated by people collecting them for the pet trade, plus pollution and habitat destruction has taken its usual toll, and during recent years many people have taken to trapping them for the food trade, much turtle food being exported to Asia. |