Turtle Rescue of Long Island

Turtle Rescue of Long Island became incorporated in 2004 when Julie Maguire and Steve Menikos saw a need for a turtle rescue, and only turtles. This was the first of its kind in Suffolk County, Long Island, NY. It wasn't long before turtles and tortoises of all kinds were pouring in.

Native turtles of New York are: Www.TurtleRescues.org

Blandings Turtle Emydoidea blandingii (Threatened)

Eastern Box Turtle Terrapene carolina carolina (Special Concern)

Snapping Turtle Chelydra serpentina (Protected)

Bog Turtle Glyptemys muhlenbergii (Endangered)

Eastern Painted Turtle Chrysemys picta picta (Protected)

Wood Turtle Glyptemys insculpta (Special Concern)

Diamondback Terrapin Malaclemys terrapin terrapin (Protected)

Spotted Turtle Clemmys gutatta (Special Concern)

Common Map Turtle Graptemys geographica (Protected)

Common Musk Turtle Sternotherus odoratus (Protected)

Eastern Mud Turtle Kinosternon subrubrum subrubrum (Endangered)

Spiny Softshell Turtle Apalone spinifer spinifer (Special Concern)

The only two turtles never seen at TRLI are the Blandings and the Bog turtles. The most common turtles taken in are the Eastern box turtle, Snapping turtle, Eastern Painted turtle, and the Diamondback terrapin. Eggs from each of those species have been incubated and released back into the wild.

Although Red-eared sliders are not native, instead listed as an introduced species, there is an abundance of them in most lakes, ponds, and rivers not only throughout Suffolk County, but the entire state of New York.

In the beginning, Turtle Rescue of Long Island (TRLI) took in every native turtle and every pet turtle brought to them, but over the years the rehabilitation work became more time-consuming. Although taking in every unwanted pet that could no longer be kept, a decision was made to stop pet turtle adoptions and concentrate on native turtles for rehabilitation and release. In 2015, it was announced that no more pet turtles would be taken in. Although there have been some exceptions since then, for the most part only native turtles are received, treated, and released. There are some cases of rehabilitation where turtles are too damaged to be released back to the wild, but most are able to go home once they heal. Some turtles may be at the rescue (which is run at Julie's home) for several years, some just for a few days. Each case varies, just like some people recover quickly and can go home, and some need long-term care. There are both indoor and outdoor enclosures and a couple of ponds that house unreleasable turtles, surrendered pet turtles, and provide soft release for those that can be released. The turtles come in not only from people looking for a rescue but also from local vets, local nature centers, the local zoo, DEC, Humane Society, and US Fish and Wildlife. As stated, the exceptions to pet turtles are when any of these organizations call for help. When pet turtles are received, once they are deemed healthy they are put up for adoption.

Thousands of turtles and tortoises have been brought to the rescue over the years, and every effort is made to help each one recover and either be released back to the wild or go to a great home if it is not native. At any given time there can be from 50 to 100 turtles or more, depending on the season. The worst time of year is spring when the female turtles are out and about looking to nest and lay their eggs. So many are struck by vehicles. These are the saddest cases, as they are risking their lives to lay their eggs only to be found on the side of the road suffering. Not all die, and many are able to be saved; and at the very least, if it's a female that hasn't laid her eggs yet, even if she can't be saved, the eggs can be harvested so they can be incubated and released into the wild when they hatch. In the fall it seems that more male turtles come into the rescue likely out and about looking for a female before the cold weather gives them the inclination that it's time to prepare for hibernation.

It should be noted that being struck by vehicles isn't the only trauma turtles face. The aquatic turtles also get struck by boat propellers. They are also all at risk for chemical toxicity from lawn fertilizers and pesticides. People spray their yards, which in effect contaminates not only the plants that the turtles may eat, but the bugs, worms, and slugs that many of the turtles eat. It's sad to see them suffer the ill effects of these chemicals, and many times they can't be saved.

Advice to anyone finding a turtle: if it's not injured, leave it where it is. Take a picture, but don't take the turtle. By no means should a turtle ever be moved from one area to another. Most, especially box turtles, have a very strong homing instinct. If a turtle is injured, get it to a wildlife rehabilitator specializing in turtles as soon as possible, or to a wildlife vet. It's very important to provide them with the location the turtle was found so it can be returned to the same area. A great article on a study of box turtles can be found here:

http://www.chelonian.org/ttn/archives/ttn6/pp17-26.shtml

< With box turtle populations becoming even more fragmented, and recruitment declining, measures are needed to save extant populations. We have completed the first nine years of tests on the feasibility of using donated, homeless adult eastern box turtles to establish a self-sustaining, resident population inside preserves where ancestral populations had been completely extirpated (e.g. Belzer 1999b, 1999c, and unpublished data). These turtles included wild-caught pets and otherwise displaced individuals whose natal Pennsylvania homes were unknown (Belzer, 1996 and 1999b). We now know that despite many consecutive years of intensive day-to-day monitoring, and retrieval when animals move out of the preserve, well over 60% of the displaced turtles failed to establish new home ranges within the confines of the 80 ha McKeever preserve. A complete picture from our initiation of similar studies at the much larger Buttermilk Hill Nature Sanctuary will not be known for many years, but in our first year of work we already found that translocated box turtles will abandon even this 200 ha preserve. This reflects Bob Cook's (1996) finding of high emigration from a 400 ha preserve at New York's Gateway National Recreation area. It is clear that the costs for this approach to repatriation are prohibitive and fails to create a population density that would enable long-term survival of any established population. My pessimistic conclusion concerning the futility of using adult animals to rebuild declining or lost box turtle populations was echoed by a repatriation study in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve of NY (Kallaji, 1998; 1999 pers. comm.). Repatriation often fails and is widely regarded as a dubious conservation tool for many species (Reinert, 1991; Dodd and Siegel, 1991; Reinert and Rupert, 1999). Existing knowledge on density decline and ineffective remedial options already warns that the immediate lesson we need to learn is that populations need strong protection while their densities are high; this species is poor at recovering from losses.>

Turtle Rescue of Long Island urges everyone to look out for our turtles. It will never be understood how anyone can run over a large snapping turtle trying to cross a road to nest. They are huge, and if a driver encountered an inanimate object such as a rock in the road, they surely would do everything they could to avoid hitting it. It would be wonderful if everyone respected wildlife and gave them the same consideration as a rock, of any size, even the size of a tiny box turtle.

http://turtlerescues.org/

References

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📰 Article(s) of the same category(ies)

• Indo-Pacific Green Turtle
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• Cheloniology

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