A turtle named Johnny Sue, a dog named Max, and a group of creative Martha’s Vineyard eighth graders are part of a unique project to raise awareness on the Island about the threatened box turtle.
Eight young women in Oak Bluffs teacher Leah Dorr’s eighth grade science class, in conjunction with Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, have put together pamphlets, information sheets, posters, and even a Claymation movie to educate Islanders about how they can help protect the Eastern box turtle, listed as a species of special concern by the Division of Fisheries and Wildlife Natural Heritage and Endangered Species program.
The story began in an unusual way, in an effort to protect turtles during land mowing operations.
In May 2014, Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank ecologist Julie Russell and Sheriff’s Meadow director of stewardship Kristen Fauteux sought help from Karen Ogden, an experienced dog trainer specializing in search and rescue dogs. Ms. Ogden trained her dog Max to sniff out the presence of an Eastern box turtle in its natural or unnatural habitat, utilizing Johnny Sue, a turtle on loan through Natural Heritage. The purpose was to have Max search out turtles in fields prior to mowing.
Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation education coordinator Samantha Look regularly visits Island schools and spoke about Johnny Sue and the turtle sniffing project to students as a part of a newly developed box turtle curriculum. Ms. Dorr’s students were intrigued and wanted to get more involved.
‘Once it’s gone, it’s gone’
In a recent conversation, Ms. Look, Ms. Dorr, and a group of students spoke about the project.
Amelia Simmons, Katherine O’Brien, Megan Zeilinger, Riley Yuhas, Alex Rego, Bella Arias, Vivian Surprenant, and Sasha Lakis make up the student team. “When something disappears here, it can’t just come back to the area; once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Ms. Dorr said. “I introduced the idea to my eighth grade students, and all these lovely ladies just jumped onboard.”
Ms. Dorr said the project was a collaborative process of identifying the problem and deciding what to do about it.
The students decided they were mainly concerned with human behaviors that affect the turtle population and what could be done to save the depleted number of turtles on the Island.
“There are a bunch of threats, like mowing,” Amelia said.
Bella pulled out an information sheet she created with diagrams depicting the issue. She said bad mowing patterns, such as starting from the outside and working toward the middle, can trap the fleeing turtles, causing them to get run over. It’s better to mow from the inside out or in a back-and-forth pattern, in addition to mowing slowly to allow time for the turtles to move, she said.
Cars running the turtles over when they attempt to cross the road is another problem.
“It’s as simple as picking one up if you see it in the road and putting it in the direction it’s heading,” Katherine said.
“People also take them to their homes, which is not a good idea, because once you introduce them to a domesticated environment, even if you let them go, they will not know how to find food after that, and they will also keep coming back to your house,” Amelia said.
Ms. Look added that box turtles have an internal magnet of sorts that’s very specific, and will bring them back to whatever area they came from, even if it means crossing highways and endangering themselves.
Other animals are a concern as well. Dogs can claw apart the turtle’s shell, Amelia said.
The students stressed that the depletion of box turtles will have a large impact, and not just on its own species.
“The box turtle is a keystone organism, so it affects the whole ecosystem,” Katherine said. Box turtles are omnivorous, and feed on slugs, insects, earthworms, snails, mushrooms, roots, leaves, seeds, fruits, and leafy vegetables.
“Since the box turtle population went down, the population of those organisms went up,” Bella said.
Not repeating history
The problem hits close to home, the students said, and that made the project feel significant and worthwhile.
“We were talking about in the future how we want our kids to be able to see box turtles,” Megan said. “We also talked about all these animals going extinct in other places, but we don’t care as much about that because it’s not like where we live we see that. But we know that we have box turtles here.”
“In the past few weeks we’ve been given a lot of examples of these ecosystems and how they affect each other, and what would happen if one of them was taken out,” Alex said. “It was just examples, but the box turtle was so close to home, it opened our eyes about how serious it is. We don’t want to repeat history.”
“It’s not thousands of miles away,” Amelia added. “It’s right here, and we can actually do something about it. You’re not just putting some money in a slot to save polar bears. We’re actually informing people on how to make changes.”Claymation
Initially, the students had two class periods to work on the project. The rest of the work they did after school on their own time.
“We stayed here after school one day until 5:30,” Katherine said.
Amelia and Vivian came up with the idea of creating a Claymation video to provide to Sheriff’s Meadow and present at the Living Local festival, held in October, where the students manned a display.
“They pulled it together in a week,” Ms. Dorr said. “When we had our first meeting here, they came up with the idea right away. They put their heads down and started storyboarding.”
Ms. Dorr said that initially she did not think the students would have the time to put it together, but they did.
The video, pieced together with snapshots of clay models, is a fun public-service announcement about mowing patterns and saving the box turtles (available at mvtimes.com). The two students are now working on a more comprehensive video, with a model car, dog, and turtle. So far, they have 10 seconds done.
“We can probably do about 10 frames per week, or maybe 20 if we start doing it twice a week,” Amelia said. “It’s slow because each second is about 10 frames, so 10 seconds is about 100 frames. Each picture is a millisecond, or something like that.”
In the end, all the students agreed that saving box turtles on Martha’s Vineyard is something they will continue to advocate for.
“Ultimately we just want to get it out there as a PSA and keep getting the idea out there about how we can really have an impact,” Alex said. “This is close to home.”
Report sightings
Box turtles can usually be found in dry or wet woodlands, brushy fields, thickets, marsh edges, bogs, streambanks, and well-drained bottomlands. They are not typically found in water.
The high, domed shell of the box turtle gives the animal its name. It’s a small terrestrial turtle ranging in size from 4.5 to 7 inches. The light or dark black color of the shell, head, and neck is variably speckled with orange or yellow markings. Box turtles do not roam very widely, instead opting to live within a small radius. Thus, disrupting their habitat can be very detrimental. Turtle eggs are also very susceptible to predation by skunks, an introduced species, and raccoons.
There are a number of ways humans contribute to the low population of box turtles: habitat destruction from residential and industrial development, road mortality, collection by individuals for pets, mowing of fields, disturbance of nest sites, and genetic degradation due to the release of non-native (such as pet store) turtles.
Anyone who see a box turtle, on the move or nesting, is asked to report the location to the Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation at 508-693-5207.