TORONTO SUN (Ontario) 26 December 08 Slow-to-mate turtles at risk: Romantically challenged snappers in decline in Ontario (Antonella Artuso)

Snapping turtles - the 14-year-old virgins of Ontario wetlands -- may soon make it onto the province's "special concern" list.

The turtles don't mate until they're 15 years old and produce few offspring with a high mortality rate. They don't even move far from home -- usually living within one to four kilometres of where they were hatched.

The federal government has added the romantically-challenged reptile to its "species at risk" list as a "special concern" over fears that it may become threatened or endangered if its numbers continue to decline.

Barton Feilders, manager of planning and research for the ministry of natural resources, said Ontario will do an independent assessment of the snapping turtle's situation this year.

Feilders said the "special concern" designation raises a "yellow flag" but does not come with habitat protection as part of a recovery plan.

Snapping turtles have a wide range in Ontario. But because snapping turtles don't produce young until they're 15 years of age, the loss of one specimen has a larger impact, he said.

"They're sensitive to human activities ... but also natural causes. Areas that might get washed out while they're trying to hatch their eggs," Feilders said. "

New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns questioned Natural Resources Minister Donna Cansfield recently in the legislature about the future of the troubled turtle.

"You're considering a regulation to allow hunting of the snapping turtle in Ontario's newest park, Kawartha Highlands," Tabuns told the minister. "Why are you doing that?"

Cansfield explained to Tabuns that when a species is identified at the federal level, it triggers an automatic review by a provincial committee.

"COSSARO identifies whether or not that species is in Ontario, and then we put that species on the same list of species at risk, and then that species is removed from any opportunity for hunting and is, in fact, protected," Cansfield said. "That will automatically happen."
Romantically challenged snappers in decline in Ontario

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