NORTH BAY NUGGET (Ontario) 23 June 07 Trauma centre assists turtles (Joelle Kovach)
I don't like turtles.
They carry salmonella. As a compulsive hand-washer and general germaphobe, I can't bring myself to warm up to them.
I try not to discuss my aversion to this reptile when I'm with my friend Danielle Tassie, who's turtle crazy.
Tassie, 33, is a volunteer at the Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre, a hospital for turtles who have been run over by cars.
Her duties include injecting antibiotics into their legs. turtles don't like getting needles. They flail their limbs when they see Tassie coming.
And you can't blame the turtles. They've already been run over, and they're not in the mood for more abuse.
Dr. Kristy Hiltz, the veterinarian who founded the hospital five years ago, stitches their cracked shells together with surgical wire. They don't like that much, either.
She used to apply fibreglass patches, but she finds the surgical wire works better because it's difficult to see and treat infections beneath a fibreglass patch.
Following surgery, turtles remain in hospital while their shells heal - often for a year. During this time, Tassie injects antibiotics.
Once they're healed, Tassie gets to discharge her patients. Every spring, she piles them in her car and drives them back home. The hospital keeps records of where each turtle was found, and Tassie says they try to return them to nearby wetlands.
Tassie and her husband, Steve Peterson, 37, are among about 25 volunteers at the turtle hospital. They often release turtles together.
"You should come along with us this year," she tells me.
OK. As long as I don't have to touch one.
The Kawartha Turtle Trauma Centre is a room of roughly 75 square metres in a commercial building.
Hiltz says the centre has treated about 250 turtles over the past five years. It costs between $30,000 and $40,000 to run the hospital for a year. The money comes from donations and fundraisers.
In the turtle hospital, it's hot - about 27 C. I'm with Tassie and Peterson, both work for the Ministry of Natural Resources. She writes articles about fish and wildlife for the ministry's websites, and he's a website editor.
We're here to pick up three turtles for release. There are 34 patients here today, mostly painted turtles and snappers. There are six snapping turtles, which can weigh as much as 14 kilograms and live to be 100. Their wrinkly faces and gnarled shells remain mostly submerged in their individual bathtub-sized Rubbermaid containers.
Ralph, a nine-kilogram snapper, is one of the specimens being discharged today. Ralph was run over late last September. The crack in Ralph's shell wasn't serious - no surgery was required. The wound was cleaned and antibiotics administered, then Ralph was left to heal in his tank for eight months.
"Now he's good to go?" I ask.
"Ralph's a she," Tassie points out.
Volunteers thought Ralph was a male until she started laying eggs in the hospital. Tassie helped raise the five baby snappers, who remain at the centre.
A couple of painted turtles are also headed for freedom. There are 18 small painted turtles here. Their shells are 12 to 25 centimetres long.
Christine, a painted turtle, weighs a little less than half a kilogram. She was hit last year in early June and arrived at the hospital with a small fracture of the bony bridge between the shell on her back and the shell on her belly. But Christine didn't require surgery. Just rest and drugs.
There's also Izzy, a male painted turtle who weighs a little more than half a kilogram. Izzy was hit by a car in front of the post office in Buckhorn. His fracture has since healed, and he's going home, too.
Drew Monkman, naturalist and Peterborough Examiner columnist, says female turtles start crossing highways in late May, looking for well-drained, loose, sandy soil or fine gravel for nesting sites. Road shoulders are perfect. The mother covers her eggs with soil, but the nests are frequently raided by raccoons and skunks, for whom turtle eggs are a favourite snack.
Add to this the roadkill factor, Monkman says, and it's no shock that some turtle populations are being pushed closer to extinction. As well, turtles only start laying eggs at age 18, a long time to wait for a turtle to start reproducing.
Neither painted turtles nor snappers are on the endangered lists in Ontario, but Monkman still lauds the work of the Turtle Trauma Centre. He thinks saving any turtle, particularly an adult female, is a good thing.
Which brings me back to Ralph. With her and the other two turtles in plastic tubs, we all get into Tassie's car, which has a bumper sticker that reads "I Brake for turtles."
First we're going to release Ralph in a marsh near the Otonabee River Peterson and Tassie each grab one end of the blue plastic recycling bin with Ralph inside and we walk along a trail for about five minutes until we find a swampy area. Tassie is all business.
"Well, Ralph, it's been a pleasure," she says, putting the turtle down on the edge of the swampy area leading into the river.
Ralph is motionless. It takes about three minutes before she takes a few steps toward the water. Then she slips in and swims away.
Next up: Christine. We find a creek running just off the road north of Lakefield. It's a little too close to the highway, Tassie believes, but this is the only wetland around.
She hands the turtle to Peterson, who places her on a rock in the stream. Christine immediately swims out of sight.
Next we head for Buckhorn, Izzy's home. Suddenly Peterson swerves. There's a snapping turtle poised on the edge of the highway. And she has one foot on the asphalt, about to cross.
"Noooooo!" Peterson shouts. He checks for oncoming traffic and then pulls a U-turn, stopping the car along the opposite shoulder.
As trucks hurtle past, the turtle remains undaunted.
She begins to cross. As soon as there's a break in traffic, Peterson darts across the road and grabs the back of the turtle's shell, yanking it backward, away from traffic. The turtle flails its limbs furiously.
If we had a shovel, we could scoop up the turtle and deposit it on the other side. Peterson says the only alternative is to pick it up by the back of its shell, near the tail, and carry it across the road.
"You do it," he says.
Wait a minute. It's probably covered with salmonella. And won't it snip off my fingers?
"Nah, that's a myth," Tassie assures me. "She won't bite your fingers off. Go on."
The shell is hard and dry as a rock, and I dig my fingers into the warm flesh beneath. This snapper is motionless, limbs dangling and head poking outside the shell as I check for cars and walk across. It probably weighs about 4.5 kilograms; the shell is the size of a dinner plate.
Meanwhile, Tassie scours the area for the snapper's nest. She can't find it, but she turns up eight dead painted turtles, all of them roadkill.
We may have prevented another casualty, Peterson observes.
http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/webapp/sitepages/search/results.asp?contentid=583676&catname=Lifestyle&type=search&search1=turtles
