July 10, 2020 - Flashback to Relocating a Turtle Nest

    Winter time is a much slower season for the habitat program compared to the amount of projects we have going on during the spring and summer months. For this reason, I thought it would be fun to throw it back to an awesome project that Britta Plumhoff (FWS Biological Technician) and I got to complete last July! Eric Anderson, approached us one day, and asked Britta and I to relocate a turtle's nest that was identified to be laid very close to the road of the auto-tour route at Ridgefield NWR. We both were ecstatic to accept this challenge, of course, because it is not very often that we get to work in a hands-on fashion with wildlife on the Refuge - but this emergency relocation was definitely an exception! It is important to note that the public is not allowed to interfere with these fragile nests. If you ever spot one in a precarious location please report it to us immediately at (360)887-4106, and feel free to leave a message if needed. 

The nest that Britta and I had to relocate. We ended up pulling out 10 turtle eggs total! 

To dig up this fragile nest, and obtain the eggs without injuring them in any way, Britta used a tiny pick, and her fingers, to dust the dirt away (slowly) from the eggs in the nest. With gloved hands, she carefully set the eggs out in the grass for me to come and collect. 

In order to maintain social distancing, Britta worked on getting the eggs out of the old nest, and I focused on placing the eggs into a new nest that was much farther away from the gravel road. We actually ended up finding what we believed to be an empty turtle's nest about 20 feet away from the nest we were relocating, and it was closer to the water. So we decided to simply place those eggs we dug up, in this already constructed nest structure. I carried the eggs in my leather glove along with some of the dirt from the original nest, and used my nitrile glove for precision handling of the eggs. 

A close up view of some of the eggs I was carrying over to the new nest. I learned this day that turtle eggs are very soft and squishy and can even be translucent in some areas. We handled these guys extremely carefully & used feather-light touches. 

 
Turtle Crossing! Above, you see a painted pond turtle that was crossing the road on a hot summer day. As late summer approaches, some of the wetlands begin to dry up completely - Which encourages these guys to cross treacherous gravel roads in order to find a new water source. To learn more about painted pond turtles, Click here!