This suburban ball field is home-base for a small population of wood turtles. The wood turtles live in the woods (of course) and stream nearby, but come up into the lawn next to the ball field to lay their eggs. When we first started studying the turtle population here in 2019, the area was weedy and full of invasive species, and Zoo New England worked with the Town of Acton to clear some of the invasive plants and improve the habitat – both for native plants, pollinators, and the wood turtles. In 2021, Eagle Scout Anna Campbell helped plant wildflower seedlings in the newly cleared area, and created a sign (“A Home Base for Wood Turtles”) for the area to explain what was going on.
Since then, wood turtles have nested in the newly restored nesting area each year. This year, one female wood turtle took extra special notice of Anna Campbell’s work, and laid her nest right at the base of Anna’s sign. A Home Base for wood turtles indeed!
Prior to this habitat improvement, this location was not suitable for nesting or even turtle foraging. We transformed this environment to benefit the wood turtles, but we also helped increase plant biodiversity to improve the habitat for pollinators like bees, butterflies, and birds as well.
Just recently, our team excavated this nest to prepare for the hatchling turtles to be raised in our headstart program. After the natural incubation process has occurred for around 55 days, we carefully expose the eggs to retrieve them each one by one. We then continue to incubate the eggs for another few weeks until finally, they begin to hatch out.
The first hatchlings began to emerge at the end of July, and are a new hope for this declining turtle population. They will be raised by local elementary school students through our HATCH program, and released back into the wild next year when they are bigger and stronger.
