ASBURY PARK PRESS (New Jersey) 02 September 10 Slow and steady may win the race in 20-year terrapin study program (Bob Vosseller)
Waretown: A blend of science, conservation and technology is all part of an ongoing 20-year study concerning diamondback terrapins and the environmental conditions that are affecting their mortality.
Drexel University Professor Hal Avery said Friday that "overall, we are extremely pleased with the progress of this study. Many of our students are working on many diverse projects.
Avery heads the 20-year study which is based at the Lighthouse Environmental Center in Waretown and involves the E.B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge off Barnegat Bay.
This marks the fifth year for the Barnegat Bay Terrapin Project.
Avery and a number of graduate students and volunteers have been studying various turtle species, migration patterns, population and spawning patterns at the center each summer.
The program is funded by Earth Watch which is based in Boston, Mass., and draws teams of volunteers on a nine-day basis from around the world. Avery said volunteers this year came from as far as Japan, in addition to Canada and England.
On Friday, Avery said the team found a commercial crab trap. "We call it a ghost trap as it has broken off from a number of traps and was found floating in the bay. These traps could kill terrapins that climb inside it and drown."
Coincidentally, a crabber reported finding another crab trap that morning which contained a terrapin which had been tagged for ongoing study in the bay. Avery and team members Abby Dominy, a Drexel University graduate student and Lise Theriault, an Earth Watch volunteer from New Brunswick, Canada went off by boat to meet up with the rescued turtle which had been secured on a small boat by other team members.
The adult female terrapin was alive and in the safe hands of Dr. Edward Standora of the Dept. of Biology, Buffalo State College, Buffalo N.Y.; Julianne Winters, a Ph.D. student of Drexel University who has been with the project for three years, and Earth Watch volunteer Ellen McKnight of New York City.
"They had been looking for that turtle for several weeks," Avery said. A crabber had alerted them to the find having seen the small orange-like antenna that was attached to the turtle's shell bobbing up in the water in the crab trap.
Standora designed the special radio units that are used to track the turtles. "We use a radio antenna which is used to track a signal from the turtle through a radio transmitter. We also use a kind of GPS and a sonic transmitter which is like the sonar used in a submarine," Winters said.
Avery noted that "there are all sorts of debris from recreation and commercial crabbing. They get snagged on it and it creates a potential hazard."
Winters said she is working on a project concerning the impact of bulk heading and how it can block turtles who are seeking to return to the area where they were hatched. She set up a scenario where an area was blocked and observed their behavior which showed that they would come on the surface and would travel around the site.
"They are spending more time moving around and are then facing more risk and stress," Winters said.
Avery and his team then traveled on to meet up with another team stationed in a salt marsh area of the bay where Drexel student Lori Lester was working with sound, using a sonic telemetry device that is used to play recorded boat engine sounds.
Last summer Lester said that similar tests revealed that by "measuring their neuroactivity we discovered they can hear and that was exciting."
To her dismay however, she found this summer that her tests had shown that the turtles that are placed in a small trench in the marsh do not respond to the recorded boat sounds.
"There is no reaction. They just swim right past the speaker. If it were an actual boat in its path the turtle could be injured or killed," Lester added.
Lester was joined on Friday by Drexel University graduate student Elise Winterberger of Bucks County, Pa. and Earth Watch volunteers Eileen Bayer of Maine and Rachel Seary of Wales. They were using a censor which measures temperature and depth readings.
Dominy said her studies involved how turtles "interpret what is around them" and why those of the same species have vast differences in color and markings.
Avery celebrated his 50th birthday last week with his colleagues, students and Earth Watch volunteers at the Lighthouse Center. He described caterer Pat Augustine of Island Heights as "our mother while we are away from home. We really are a family here and its fascinating to see the progress of our Ph.D students who have graduated and who have become full investigators."
Slow and steady may win the race in 20-year terrapin study