MILFORD DAILY NEWS (Massachusetts) ; Turtles less tasty target after growth...

MILFORD DAILY NEWS (Massachusetts) 03 June 06 Turtles less tasty target after growth spurt (Jon Brodkin)
Westborough: They begin life the size of a quarter, easy prey for fish, frogs and birds looking for a snack.
But the endangered Northern red-bellied cooter, a type of turtle, is finding it easier to survive in the wild thanks to high school students and scientific facilities that raise them in captivity until the reptiles are big enough to avoid predators.
Nine months after removing turtles from the wild as hatchlings, volunteers gathered yesterday at the state Fisheries & Wildlife headquarters to weigh and measure 156 cooters and mark their shells. The turtles will be released into the wild Monday in Middleborough.
Eating romaine lettuce every day, the turtles grew as fast as a baseball player taking steroids.
"They’re sort of like little Barry Bondses with shells," said Tom Eldridge, a science teacher at North Quincy High School who led one group of students in raising the turtles. "They get big enough that not a lot of things can fit them in their mouths."
The turtles are classified as endangered in Massachusetts and by the federal government. In the Bay State, they are found only in Plymouth County, completely isolated from other populations in mid-Atlantic states, according to MassWildlife.
In 1984, there were only a few hundred adult red-bellied cooters in the state, because eggs and hatchlings were being snatched up by predators.
"There were big adults but no youngsters coming along to take their place. It turns out they were being eaten by bullfrogs and pickerel and so forth," said Dave Taylor, who has been helping students raise the turtles at Triton Regional High School in Byfield for a dozen years.
Taylor retired from his job as a science teacher a couple years ago, but stayed on to lead the Triton kids, who raised four turtles this year. They are kept in 83-degree water, which must be changed frequently.
"They’ll foul a tank in 24 hours," Taylor said. "It’s romaine lettuce in, romaine lettuce out, and the tank gets gross."
Despite a certain amount of filth, Ally Davis says she’ll miss the baby turtles. Just graduated, Davis made the trek to Westborough yesterday to see them off.
"I’ve gotten attached to them," Davis said. "This is something I’ve done every day since October. I’m always around them."
The "Headstart" program began in the mid-1980s and has released more than 2,000 turtles into the wild. Once they achieve a safe size, the turtles are released into the same ponds they were taken from, Eldridge said.
Organizations that help give the turtles a head start include the New England Aquarium, Museum of Science and the EcoTarium in Worcester.
From head to tail, the turtles have grown to a length of about six inches. Eventually, they’ll be a foot long and weigh 10 pounds, said John Berkholtz, senior zookeeper at Zoo New England. They are the second largest freshwater turtle in the state, smaller only than the snapping turtle.
"When they’re that size there are very few, if any, predators who would go after them," Berkholtz said. "When they’re first hatched out, they’re only the size of a quarter so they can be easily picked off by predators."
http://www.milforddailynews.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=93016

THE ENTERPRISE (Brockton, Massachusetts) 06 June 06 Turtle sendoff: 156 red-bellied cooters return to the wild in Middleboro (Alice C. Elwell)
Middleboro: A brigade of red-bellied turtles hit Middleboro shores Monday morning, ready to start their lives in the pristine waters of one of the state's largest lake systems.
More than a dozen children and several dozen adults watched as 156 northern red-bellied cooters (turtles) were released at Great Quittacas and Pocksha ponds after they spent the winter with the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife in Westboro.
The process to save the endangered turtles involves skimming a few young cooters from each nest of about a dozen hatchlings. John Crane of Plymouth and his 5-year-old son, Connor, search out the nests.
"We see the tracks and know what to look for," he said.
The Cranes protect the clutch by placing a wire cage over the top and return to monitor it during the three-month incubation period. By summer's end the clutch has hatched and the Cranes carefully remove the cream of the crop.
The tiny cooters, about the size of a quarter, are raised during the winter in warm aquariums with an unlimited food supply by several different groups, including students at North Quincy High School, Quincy High School and the South Shore Science Center in Norwell.
The coddling pays off. By the time the hatchlings are ready to be reintroduced to the wild, they have grown to the size of 5-year-old cooters and are not as vulnerable to predators because of their size.
The program, called "Headstarting," began in the 1980s when there were only an estimated 200 cooters left. Since then more than 2,000 of the endangered turtle have been released into the wild throughout the region, including Plymouth's Federal Furnace Pond, which is "their stronghold," said Peter Mirick, a biologist with the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
Cooters, found only in Plymouth County, were originally called Plymouth red-belly turtles, but are now known as northern red-bellied cooters, after their coral-red shell. They are the state's second largest turtle, behind the snapper. They can weigh up to 10 pounds and can live for several decades, Mirick said.
The cooters were released by children who carefully walked to the shore of Great Quittacas Pond and set them in the sand. The turtles raced to the water.
Danny Raposa, 4, of Mansfield watched as a turtle's head bobbed from the lake. He didn't want to touch one, but liked watching them.
The turtles weren't the only ones to get wet. Adults and children alike got their feet wet as the turtles made their mad dash to water.
Mirick said cooters are fast swimmers. A human couldn't keep up with them.
"Without turtles there'd be lots of mosquitoes," said 5-year-old Coleman Gillis of Quincy, as he set his down in the sand.
Dennis Pizzi of Berkley brought his daughters, Rasa, 5, and Kristina, 3, to watch the release. Both girls have turtles of their own, a red slider and a musk, destined to be set free soon. Rasa watched the turtles swim away and said, "I like their colors." "They are the crown jewel of biodiversity," Mirick explained. "They're so unique."
Cooters can only live in a "pristine habitat," Mirick said. "They're the equivalent of the aquatic canary in the coal mines."
He said he hopes for the day when the population of cooters, which are vegetarians, reaches the point where they will be effective in controlling pond weeds.
"We can't save the species just with regulations, we have to have people behind them," Mirick said. "A lot of these kids will remember this moment for the rest of their lives. In 20, 30 or 40 years they'll still be interested in how the turtle is doing and stand up for them against construction projects."
Mirick said no one knows for sure how long cooters can live. At least 50 years, he said, and some might even live to be 80.
It is illegal to keep cooters in captivity, but biologists at Mass Wildlife say they could use a hand when a cooter is spotted crossing the street. Always release them where they were found, pointing in the direction of the water, Mirick said.
Not only were turtles being released Monday, but across Pocksha Pond eagle chicks were being banded, as part of the "Eagle Restoration Project."
"It's a testament to the productivity of the area," said Marion Larson of Mass Wildlife.
She said biologists have to time the banding carefully. If the chicks are too young, the bands will fall off, if the chicks are too old, they'll fly away. Larson said the project now counts up to 25 eagle nests in the sate. People can go to www.nu.com, for a link to see pictures of the eagle chicks.
Larson said help is needed locating eagle nests and asks resident's to call 508-792-7270 or e-mail mass.wildlife@state.ma.us to report eagles carrying sticks, a sure sign they're building a nest.
http://www.enterprisenews.com/articles/2006/06/06/news/news/news17.txt