It’s easy to stay home when you carry your shelter on your back. But if you’re a turtle looking to expand your family, a bachelorette pad just won’t do. You'll need to find a proper nesting site and a go on at least one really good date.
Finding a date should be easy. Southern Ontario has the highest density and variety of turtle species in all of Canada. Finding the best nesting site on the other hand may prove more difficult.
Turtles look for sand or loose gravel to lay and bury their eggs. But many natural nesting sites have been lost to development. Turtles often use groomed, exposed trails and roads with gravel shoulders instead. They can seem like a good choice to a turtle, but often nests in these locations result in turtle and egg fatalities.
It takes five to twenty-five years for turtles to reach breeding maturity, depending on the species and location. If they've made it that far, they're pretty lucky! Only one in every hundred eggs is likely to hatch and grow into a date-seeking adult.
You can see why saving a single turtle can have a positive effect on future turtle populations. Here’s five things you can do to help a turtle out:
Turtle truths and a lie
Two truths and a lie is a fun ice breaker game where participants need to guess which of three statements about another participant is false. Here's the turtle version. Vote for the turtle fact you think is false. We'll reveal the answer in the next Countryside Stewardship Mail.
- Turtles can go weeks without food and withstand significant blood loss due to their low metabolic rate.
- Turtles outgrow their shell during adolescence and must find a larger shell to live in.
- A turtle’s shell is made of bone and breaking the shell can feel like breaking a leg.
|
|
Climate Change and Your Health
Free three-part webinar series
How will rising temperatures, increasing disease risk and severe weather affect your health and the health of the environment? Join us for a three-part webinar series for rural residents to discover actions you can take to protect yourself and your property.
Extreme Heat
Friday, May 29, 12-1 p.m.
Featured speaker: Kevin Behan, Deputy Director, Clean Air Partnership
Register
Disease
Saturday, June 6, 10-11 a.m.
Featured speaker: Helen Doyle, Environmental Health Work Group Chair, Ontario Public Health Association
Register
Severe Weather
Thursday, June 11, 7-8 p.m.
Featured speaker: Alexandra Service, Climate Change Specialist, Town of Caledon
Register
|
|
Sincerely,
Your Countryside Stewardship Team
|
|
|
Credit Valley Conservation (CVC) continues to monitor the rapidly evolving COVID-19 pandemic and is taking steps to keep our communities, vendors and staff safe. Visit cvc.ca for latest updates.
|
|
|
|
|
