Seneca the Blanding’s turtle is last of her kind in Cootes Paradise
Efforts to preserve and help her procreate becoming urgent as time may be running out
Her name is Seneca and she is known as the loneliest turtle in Cootes Paradise.
Royal Botanical Gardens scientists believe she is the last remaining sexually mature female Blanding’s turtle in the marsh, a final holdout from a time when the species was a vibrant part of the local ecosystem.
Blanding’s turtles — which are known for their bright yellow throat and chin — are listed as “threatened” in Ontario, and there are small numbers of them elsewhere in the area.
But RBG scientists find it discouraging that Blanding’s and other turtle species are continuing to diminish while conditions in Cootes Paradise have improved over recent decades.
For the past four years, Seneca has been outfitted with a radio transmitter, so her movements can be monitored. Researchers keep logs of her travels, hoping she doesn’t walk onto roadways; and to look for signs that she might be laying eggs.
“With her being the last Blanding’s turtle that we know of in Cootes Paradise, we want to give her every chance to reproduce,” says Tys Theysmeyer, head of natural lands for the RBG.
Seneca is believed to be about 50 years old, but no one knows for sure. Blanding’s turtles can live to be 70 years of age. They reach sexual maturity at 18 to 22 years and maintain the ability to reproduce very late in life.
There are two or three male Blanding’s turtles in Cootes. But last year Seneca apparently didn’t meet up with them. She laid no eggs in 2017, something normally done in June.
“She made like she wanted to. She kept digging, but she didn’t actually lay any eggs. We don’t know why. Maybe she didn’t mate with a male and maybe she was just biologically programmed to go through the process of digging a hole and pretending to lay eggs, even when she didn’t have any,” said Sarah Richer, the RBG’s species at risk biologist.
Richer says she is hopeful for offspring this year, but with so few mates available, the odds are slim.
Seneca has come to symbolize the desperation of trying to keep native turtles from being extirpated from Cootes Paradise and other RBG lands.
Two species are already gone. The common musk turtle was last seen at the RBG Fishway in 2009 and the eastern spiny softshell turtle disappeared in the 1990s.
Now on RBG property there are three native species, besides the Blanding’s turtles, remaining — the snapping turtle, the midland painted turtle and the northern map turtle. As well, there are two non-native species — the red-eared slider and the yellow-bellied slider — that were introduced by pet owners releasing their store-bought turtles into the marsh.
Richer says: “Turtles are the quintessential innocent bystanders. They don’t transmit disease. They don’t invade our homes. They don’t destroy crops. They don’t make horrible noises. The don’t damage our properties. They don’t cause any problems at all,” says Richer.
Yet they get a steady stream of abuse from the human world. Roads are built through their habitat, their waters are polluted by human activity, and rising temperatures from climate change are drying out wetlands.
“They are literally lambasted with human-caused factors from the time they are first laid as an egg up until when they are reproducing as an adult.” she says.
More recently, local snapping turtles have been found with ranavirus, a fatal viral disease that causes face and neck lesions along with swelling.
If a turtle mother does manage to lay eggs there are bursting populations of raccoons, skunks and foxes looking to feed on them.
A huge factor locally has been roadway deaths and injuries along Cootes Drive and Olympic Drive.
It used to be thought that crossings were made by mothers looking for egg-laying habitat. They would cross once to lay their eggs and then return.
But radio monitoring research has shown that in fact turtles make multiple crossings, so laying eggs would not be the only reason.
RBG workers this year have been continuing to build fences along Cootes Drive to try to hold back turtles from crossing. But much more needs to be constructed and some turtles have been known to simply climb over.
So far in 2018, six painted and one map turtle have been killed by automobiles, according to Dundas Turtlewatch, a 50member volunteer group dedicated to helping turtles cross roads. And the egglaying season is just starting.
Last year, the group recorded 29 turtle deaths, 11 snapping, 14 painted and four red-eared.
“I think it is an incredibly dire situation. And I think the public in general are not aware enough that turtles are really endangered now.
“Each turtle killed is a very significant happening,” says Joanna Chapman, who has been with the turtle rescue group for a decade.
Blanding’s turtles didn’t end up in the death toll this year or last, RBG officials say, because there are so few to begin with. In Seneca’s case, the monitoring equipment shows she stays away from roadways.
However, she does have a fondness for train tracks.
“She has literally been beside the railway inches from the rail as freight trains and Via Rail trains go whipping by,” said Theysmeyer.
However, Seneca does not seem to be able get onto the tracks. She is content to lay in the crushed stone around the tracks.