Turtle Rehabilitation is Conservation in Action

Wildlife rehabilitation is not new in Ontario - there are many wonderful centres for the humane treatment of all kinds of creatures who are sick or injured. However, rehabilitation of Ontario turtles is far more than the compassionate gesture of a caring community.

To understand why treatment of injured turtles can actually contribute to species recovery, we need to delve into their biology and reproduction to understand traits that are vastly different from other classes of animals.

What does all this mean? Mortality at the hatchling or juvenile stages has much less impact than adult mortality. The adult female turtle is of GREAT value to the survival of a population. Considering as few as 1% of hatchlings reach maturity, and only half of these are likely to be female, it would take 200 eggs and 18 years to produce another adult female. Because so few turtles ever reach sexual maturity, each adult turtle is part of an elite group destined to live and breed for many years in order to perpetuate the species. Removing an adult turtle will have a negative impact on the population, and saving a turtle will have a beneficial impact on the population as a whole.

This explains why roads are having such a terrible impact on turtles throughout North America. Even small numbers of adult turtles killed each year are contributing to the decline of most species, and unless road mortality is reduced, species will disappear. The rehabilitation of injured turtles is indeed contributing to the recovery of turtle populations in Ontario. Public awareness and a reduction in the number of turtles hit by motor vehicles will also preserve our turtles.

As an organization with limited physical and financial resources, our role in species recovery has to focus on education, and on treating individuals who will have a positive impact on the population. Although we will incubate eggs obtained from our patients, they will be released as soon as they hatch. Researchers have shown that headstarting turtles (keeping them over the winter) does not increase the population as a whole, and we must use our resources to work with the adults in order to maximize the benefit to the species.