Thank you for your interest in helping our turtle friends. You can help save our oldest relatives!
Turtles are a link to our past and essential for our future survival.
Turtles can take between 30 and 60 years to replace themselves. More than 80% of eggs are predated in The Land Between region. Therefore, each adult is important for the continuation of the population and is precious. But also each hatchling needs to be kept in the wild and given a chance to make a map of its territory for the rest of its life (something that can only be done when it’s a juvenile). The largest threat to turtles is from road injuries and mortality. However, habitat loss, people taking turtles home as pets, and people mistakenly thinking that snapping turtles are threatening, result in displacement, harm to these animals or death.
Meanwhile, turtles are agents of aquatic biodiversity; they move seeds around creating new habitats that support fish and other wildlife, and which plants filter water, they cycle nutrients, and they are the best cleaning crews for the dead matter and potential harmful bacteria that would be in our lakes and waters- especially our wonderful snapping turtles! Snapping turtles too, like all turtles, only react out of defense and are not offensive- and they are not known to snap under water where they feel safe and comfortable.
If you are interested in helping these most innocent creatures, please register on the Turtle Guardians website. Once registered you can choose a workshop and access the training tools on the associated linked website pages. When you look for an online training event to attend, if there isn’t If you don’t find a suitable date, watch the training videos online first, and contact us with questions or to book a phone/online meeting for more support!
See www.turtleguardians.ca for all Citizen Science opportunities
We currently run three turtle citizen science programs:
- Road Researchers
- Nest Sitters
- Wetland Watchers
These opportunities are made possible with the generous funding provided by