"Head Start" program
Red-bellies head to the wild
The Head Start program for Northern red-bellied cooters (formerly classified as Plymouth red-bellied turtles) began in 1984. Dr. Terry
Graham, biology professor at Worcester State College had been studying these turtles
since 1969, recognized the declining populations and was able to get them declared as a federally-protected endangered species in 1980. The
reasons for their rarity is complicated. New England is the northern limit of their range and any eggs that don't hatch before winter will
die in the nest.
A major cause of their endangered status is predation at hatching.The quarter-sized hatchlings are gobbled up with a plum (and relish) by bullfrogs, herons, crows, fish and snapping turtles. The Head Start program was set up to let the cooters grow in a protected environment and return them to their native ponds with a fighting chance. The turtles that arrive at the EcoTarium each September are kept warm and given an unlimited supply of food to accelerate their growth. By the time they are released each May, they are approximately the size of a 3-year-old to 4-year-old. The cooters take between 10 and 15 years to reach breeding size, so this means the cooters "head started" in the 1980s should be now entering the adult population.
Each cooter in the project has notches etched into its
shell. This helps the researchers identify them in ponds and
streams and determine how well their efforts are working. In
July 2000, Dr. Graham discovered that one of the released
turtles the EcoTarium had raised had laid eggs. This was a
major breakthrough in this species restoration effort-- a
real sign that the project is working.
EcoTarium has been involved with this project since 1985 and has released nearly 200 turtles into the wild.
Photographs by Dan Vaillancourt