Keep an eye out for cold baby turtles this month

Due to the unusually late hatching season, Turtle Patrol Nova Scotia is worried for some baby snapping turtles this year.

“Normally they hatch in September” says Clarence Stevens, a biologist and volunteer with the group. “But because we had a very late spring the females were much later, on average 20 days or later, laying their eggs.”

Stevens says this means some turtles are still hatching all the way into November.

Last week, the group was out on several days checking known nest locations for recently hatched turtles.

“On Tuesday we had a very warm, rainy day. It went up to about 15 degrees locally, and we were out checking for spots where turtles laid their eggs in the springtime,” he says. 

The group didn't find any Tuesday, but after a cold snap overnight the Turtle patrol was back the following day at temperatures below freezing.

“We wanted to check a few more spots that we didn't quite get to the day before,” Stevens tells NEWS 95.7's The Sheldon McLeod Show.

This late in the year, Stevens was hopeful that all the baby turtles would be busy burying themselves at the bottom of lakes and ponds.

“But lo and behold we find some little baby turtles beside the road, frozen,” he says.

Because snapping turtles are cold-blooded, Stevens knew they still had a chance if the volunteers could warm them back up.

“They will shut down and not be able to move, but as long as they don't freeze solid they can come back from that state,” he explains.

When the volunteers placed the baby turtles in the water, which is warmer than the air this time of year, they came back to life.

“Once they were warmed up and gotten in the water, they acted totally normal,” Stevens says. “They swam to the bottom and buried themselves in the mud.”

Stevens is hopeful the tiny turtles will make it, although they'll be slightly smaller than their siblings who hatched earlier in the year.

“The water was too cold to allow them to feed,” he explains. “So, these babies will be half the size of the baby snapping turtles that would've hatched in September, because those ones would have four to eight weeks of feeding before the water got too cold.

The Turtle Patrol is asking residents to keep an eye out for baby snapping turtles, who mostly hatch in gravel near water sources.

“Usally roadsides are common places, shoulders of roads that run along by lakes or ponds are often places where we'll spot the baby turtles,” says Stevens.

If you see baby turtles that aren't moving, you can try to put them in water or pick them up to warm them with your body heat.

Stevens says this won't do any damage to them.

“If you dropped them of course, but if you just pick them up there's no harm, you won't damage them necessarily,” he says. “Usually if wildlife is in trouble, most people want to try to help.”

If you don't want to touch the turtle yourself, you can also contact the Turtle Patrol on Facebook. 

Stevens says the only thing you shouldn't do is remove the turtle from its habitat, especially since it's an endangered species.

“You definitely don't want to take them home or remove them from the site where they're at. That would be harmful and it's also illegal as well,” he adds.

Unfortunately, the biologist says the trend of late hatching is becoming more common.

“That's a trend that we're seeing every year, and it's not just happening here in Nova Scotia but all along the Eastern seaboard,” says Stevens. “Especially with getting later and later springs, we're getting more cold-stunned reptiles in the fall-time.”