The turtles are back.
After receiving a permit from the Ministry of Natural Resources on Thursday to evacuate eggs from nests, conservation technicians worked a 13-hour day and evacuated over 400 snapping turtle eggs from nests in Guelph.
They prioritized nests in high-risk areas such as roads and construction sites while those in low-risk areas such as parks were protected by nest cages.
“The calls keep rolling in,” said Sarah Marshall, a conservation technician from Cambridge-based rare Charitable Research Reserve who is leading the Turtle Project and is working closely with the City of Guelph.
As of Friday, there are 15 cages around Guelph and Marshall said there will definitely be more. However, the not for profit organization will only be able to pick up 2,000 eggs because of limited incubators and resources.
Currently, there are four snapping turtle nests in York Road Park, a few at Guelph Lawn Bowling Club and many in trails across the city.
“The game is just going to be to make sure we can get as many nests as we can before they all get predated or the roads get grated,” said Marshall.
Marshall said it takes 60 to 80 days since the eggs are laid for them to hatch. Once they are collected from nests, they are raised in incubators. The hatchlings are expected to be returned to the area they were picked up late August.
The city's supervisor of trails and natural area stewardship Dave Beaton said it is working very cooperatively with rare and the Guelph community has been very caring as always towards wildlife.
After nest protectors provided by the city fell short, community members responded to a call by rare and started creating their own nest protectors to protect the turtles.
“They are a good thing to have when we were waiting for our permits and now that we have them, it allows us to focus on the super high risk nests that are around the roads while the ones in York Road Park are safe under the cages,” said Marshall.
Beaton said many community members have been reaching out to the parks department to indicate where they have seen turtle nests. The information is then shared with rare who are quick to save the eggs.
“They're coming in fast and furious. There are ones nesting all the time and they do often tend to choose the most awkward locations,” said Beaton.
Beaton said not every nest needs to be relocated.
“If they are safe, they can have the turtle nest protectors on them and if they are totally non-vulnerable anywhere, they can just be left alone,” said Beaton.
Marshall said it's definitely been a challenging year because of COVID-19 which slowed down the permit process and prevented the team from acting faster.
“Normally we would get our permit that we’re good to go to start excavating eggs in the beginning of May and we just got it yesterday.
She said because there will be no sports played in the parks, there is no rush to clear the eggs from parks.
Marshall said the organization is hoping to have another hatchlings release event like it did last year where over 100 community members gathered to witness hatchlings be released back into the wild at Royal City Park.
She also said it's important to keep a watch for hatchlings late August who are able to escape through holes on the sides of the nest cages.
