Highway to shell: tracking turtles along urban landscapes

Posted onAugust 19, 2025byRemo Boscarino-Gaetano|News and Events, Ojibway Prairie Reptile Recovery, Species at RiskPhoto: T. Hopper

What is WPC doing for the Blanding’s Turtle in Ontario? The Ojibway Prairie Complex and Greater Park Ecosystem (OPCGPE) in Ontario’s Windsor-LaSalle region is home to several reptile species threatened by urban development, habitat fragmentation and road mortality, including the Blanding’s Turtle. The Ojibway Prairie Reptile Recovery Team (OPRREC) is working to study the species through surveying and tracking, with the eventual goal of beneficial intervention.

“Take a walk with a turtle and behold the world in pause” said author Bruce Feiler, and no truer words have been spoken. There’s something about moving at a turtle’s pace that makes you notice the little things: the shimmer of sunlight on water, the gentle rustle of leaves or the quiet rhythm of a river’s flow. In our turtle tracking work, slowing down like this isn’t just poetic – it’s essential.

This year in Southwestern Ontario, the Ojibway Prairie Reptile Recovery Team expanded our species recovery efforts to include our first terrapin or semi-aquatic turtle; the Blanding’s Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii). The Blanding’s Turtle is a provincially threatened and federally endangered species, affected primarily by habitat loss and road mortality. Like all species, the conservation of this turtle requires extensive planning and commitment, as Blanding’s Turtles are characterized by slow growth, late maturation, and are known to travel kilometres on end to reach their preferred nesting spots.

The first step is to answer a few questions so we know how to help: What habitats do they prefer? Where are they nesting? What are the threats the local population is facing? These are all questions we’re aiming to answer through surveys and radio telemetry.

Blanding’s Turtle found during a survey. (Photo: T. Hopper).

Radio telemetry is a wildlife monitoring technique that provides key information on the movements of animals during a survey period. It involves placing a tracker on the animal and using a large handheld antenna to find them, following their movements. But before we track turtles, we first must catch them! This year, we tried out a new technique, using basking platform traps to increase our capture rates. Since turtles love the sun, these traps provide a platform for turtles to bask on. When they are finished basking and go to leave the platform, they plop off within the confines of the trap, finding themselves trapped until one of our friendly technicians comes to take them out. When a turtle is captured, its measurements are taken to ensure it’s large enough to carry the weight of a transmitter unimpeded (in our case, we mainly attach transmitters to adult females in an attempt to track them to their nesting sites). While we take these measurements, we’re also able to closely inspect the turtle to ensure they’re happy and healthy. This season, we have been tracking twelve Blanding’s Turtles, including seven adult females!

Can you spot the biologist? Taylor Hopper, OPRREC Reptile and Recovery Field Technician, wades through a field of lily pads on the lookout for Blanding’s Turtles. (Photo: A. Simeoni).

Two Blanding’s Turtles with trackers on their shells. (Photo: T. Hopper).

During this summer of tracking these turtles day and night, we have made some useful discoveries. We now know the areas that these turtles prefer to spend most of their time in, have come across various turtle nests across several species, and we’ve even been able to identify which roads the turtles are attempting to cross, providing an avenue for potential mitigation measures to reduce road collisions. We have also found turtles in spots we did not expect to find them! One Blanding’s Turtle took up refuge in a nearby solar farm, while others have likely passed through it on their way to another frequently visited wetland. We have also found a few of our turtles spending their time near railway tracks (and even attempting to nest right beside one)! Railways can actually present a barrier to movement for turtles, so it will be important to monitor the population to ensure they are not too hindered by the railway in their quest to reach their nesting sites.

Over their travels, these turtles risk life and limb crossing roads, railways, and ducking under fences all with the goal of reaching their preferred nesting site. With any luck, our work will make these journeys less arduous and will allow us to create habitat fitting for a host of Blanding’s Turtles and other native wildlife species that we are so fortunate to share a planet with!

References

Congdon, J.D., Dunham, A.E., Sels, R.C.V.L., 1993. Delayed Sexual Maturity and Demographics of Blanding’s Turtles (Emydoidea blandingii): Implications for Conservation and Management of Long-Lived Organisms. Conservation Biology 7, 826–833.

COSEWIC assessment and status report on the Blanding’s Turtle Emydoidea blandingii: Nova Scotia population and Great Lakes/ St. Lawrence population in Canada., 2016., Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Environment and Climate Change Canada, Ottawa, Ontario.

Dowling, Z., Hartwig, T., Kiviat, E., Keesing, F., 2010. Experimental Management of Nesting Habitat for the Blanding’s Turtle (Emydoidea blandingii). Ecological Restoration 28, 154–159. https://doi.org/10.3368/er.28.2.154

Haramura, T., Yamane, M., Mori, A., 2010. Radiotelemetric Study of Movement Patterns of Lotic Freshwater Turtles during Breeding and Hibernation Seasons. Journal of Freshwater Ecology 25, 251–259. https://doi.org/10.1080/02705060.2010.9665075

Kays, R., Tilak, S., Crofoot, M., Fountain, T., Obando, D., Ortega, A., Kuemmeth, F., Mandel, J., Swenson, G., Lambert, T., Hirsch, B., Wikelski, M., 2011. Tracking Animal Location and Activity with an Automated Radio Telemetry System in a Tropical Rainforest. The Computer Journal 54, 1931–1948. https://doi.org/10.1093/comjnl/bxr072

King, R., Anchor, C., Anthonysamy, W.J.B., Denham, S., Dreslik, M., Dunham, N., Glowacki, G., Golba, C.K., Graser, W., Jablonski, C., Janzen, F., Kessler, E.J., Kuhns, A.R., Ludwig, D.R., McCabe, K., Phillips, C., Thompson, D., Towey, J.B., 2025. Archival data reveals human impacts on Blanding’s turtle population persistence. Journal for Nature Conservation 87, 126966. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2025.126966

Remo Boscarino-Gaetano

Project Biologist, Ojibway Prairie Reptile Recovery Program

Remo previously worked as a Habitat Enhancement Field Technician with our OPRREC team and is returning as a Project Biologist after a two year hiatus in Australia where he completed a Masters program. Looking forward to applying the techniques he learned in Australia to help conserve some of Canada’s most unique and under-appreciated species like the Massasauga rattlesnake, Blanding’s turtle, and Butler’s gartersnake – he hopes to help foster a better environment for Canadian species to flourish, while creating a more caring community in Windsor and across Canada so people and wildlife can respectfully coexist.