The turtle trackers.In a tiny pocket of a suburban landscape in Dutchess County, New York--wedged between a high school, a golf course, and a freeway--an uninteresting-looking patch of forest and swamp is actually a multi-million dollar artificial habitat built to protect and study a handful of turtles. "In the last 10 years much has been said about how frogs are not doing well around the world. As a group, turtles are as bad off," says Erik Kiviat, executive director of Hudsonia, an environmental research group in New York's Hudson Valley
The Hudson Valley refers to the canyon of the Hudson River and its adjacent communities in New York State, generally from northern Westchester County northward to the cities of Albany and Troy. . Hudsonia strives to protect one species, the Blanding's turtle, which is listed as threatened in the state. The reptiles reptiles terrestrial or aquatic vertebrates which breathe air through lungs and have a skin covering of horny scales. They are poikilothermic, oviparous or ovoviviparous, and, if they have legs they are short and constructed solely for crawling. live up to 80 years and reach sexual maturity in their mid-teens, although many don't live long enough to reproduce. Raccoons favor their eggs, people collect them as pets, they're sensitive to habitat fragmentation Habitat fragmentation is a process of environmental change important in evolution and conservation biology. As the name implies, it describes the emergence of discontinuities (fragmentation) in an organism's preferred environment (habitat). and loss, and many perish TO PERISH. To come to an end; to cease to be; to die. 2. What has never existed cannot be said to have perished. 3. When two or more persons die by the same accident, as a shipwreck, no presumption arises that one perished before the on roadways. (Blanding's turtles travel a mile or more to find optimal nesting sites and often cross highways.) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Hudsonia created this particular habitat eight years ago, just before a nearby high school expanded and paved over the existing wetland the turtles called home. About 25 adult Blanding's turtles now reside in several swamps beneath the trees, most wearing a small radio glued to their shells. There are human-centered reasons to protect each turtle from extinction. "Something about turtles' skin resists infection. They can sustain injuries and heal wounds that would often kill other creatures," says Kiviat. It is possible that at some future date a specific species of turtle may hold genetic answers useful to human medicine. For now, the focus is on keeping the turtles alive and safe. While no human but an informed researcher would look at this patch of forest twice (except perhaps ruefully rue·ful adj. 1. Inspiring pity or compassion. 2. Causing, feeling, or expressing sorrow or regret. rue upon losing a golf ball in the muck), it remains a small haven for Blanding's turtles and the other creatures that have moved in with them: spotted turtles, ribbon snakes, muskrats, and birds such as the red-winged blackbird blackbird, common name in North America of a perching bird allied to the bobolink, the meadow lark, the oriole, and the grackle and belonging to the family Icteridae. The European blackbird, Turdus merula, is a thrush. and cedar waxwing cedar waxwing: see waxwing. . Their habitat off-limits to human recreation and industry, four-legged, winged, and exoskeleton-clad creatures clamor to the branches and mud in preference to the strip malls and gas stations nearby. For more information about the Blanding's turtle project, visit www.hudsonia.org. |
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