Box Turtles

When we see turtles crossing the road, we always stop and help them across if we can do it safely.

Box turtles are pretty common locally and I see them all the time in the spring. I had noticed that I rarely saw young turtles and I ran into a herpatologist at a party who explained why.

Box turtles are in big trouble. They are very long lived (a century!), but few young are hatching. We haven't noticed the decline because the adults are still around, but as the older turtles die off, there will not be replacements. The culprits in this tragedy are possums and raccoons. As humans have altered the environment, we have favored animals that can piggyback on our settlements. Raccoons and possums like to dig up and eat clutches of turtle eggs. As the vermin population expands, fewer box turtle clutches are left undiscovered.

You can read more here and here.



The baby box turtle we found was a female. You can easily sex box turtles. Females have yellow eyes and males have red eyes.