They say this June is a deadly month for turtles. But it doesn't have to be.
Eight snapping turtles were spotted at York Road Park yesterday- most of them laying eggs.
The city's supervisor of trails and natural area stewardship Dave Beaton says the park is both an attractive and a vulnerable location for the turtles who are scouting for locations to lay eggs at this time of the year.
The city temporarily closed the park yesterday in order to take steps to protect the turtles.
“This is late for the turtles to be nesting but we have perfect weather for them to do so, so a huge number of turtles came out. With the perfect weather, that's why there was so much activity all at once,” says Beaton.
To protect them, the city installed protective nets over several turtle nests in an effort to defend them from getting trampled, compacted or raided by predators.
The city is working with the rare Charitable Research Reserve who are reviewing eggs in the areas that are vulnerable and then removing those eggs to be raised in incubators. The hatched turtles will then be returned to the area in late August or early September.
The rare Charitable Research Reserve is an urban land trust and environmental institute in Waterloo Region/Wellington with four locations protecting almost 1,000 acres of highly sensitive lands.
“Turtles don't stay with the nests. They are very hands-off parents. So there are no turtles being taken. The turtle eggs are being taken to improve their success," says Beaton.
While it might seem strange for the turtles to lay eggs right in the middle of a park, Beaton says when the turtles are looking for sites, they look for sites that have a gravel-like or sandy-like substrate where they can dig into and that is why they often end up on the sides of roads or in trails.
“They want to be in sunny exposed areas which is why the parks are considered to be quite attractive to them. When they're looking for nest sites, that looks perfect to them and the issue is that a lot of those places that have less grass on them or exposed are places where we actually have more people walking on them,” says Beaton.
Beaton says the city was notified of turtles behind The Boathouse, behind the Guelph Lawn Bowling Club and in Heritage Park, but none of those scenarios were similar to the surge or turtles found in York Road Park.
“Yesterday was sort of the ground zero of turtle nesting,” says Beaton.
Beaton says it is likely that the surge of activity will quiet down in the coming few days at which point the turtle nests, which are in vulnerable locations, will be relocated and the ones that are in safe locations will be protected by turtle protectors or marked to keep them safe.
