Category: Blog Post

Biometry Presentation

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment
Giving a short presentation tomorrow in my biometry class on my turtle research. So here, have some slides! It was actually REALLY cool to have a first stab at analyzing my preliminary data, from three field seasons. I still have one more field season before I’ll be finished with this project. But, it was COOL! I’m not yet able to answer my main question: do these turtles exhibit nest site fidelity? But I’m starting to tease apart the various factors that may influence how they decide where to nest. tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno1_1280tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno2_1280tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno6_1280tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno3_1280tumblr_mefk6lkYAQ1r5vtdno4_1280
 

Fostering Rodents

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

Here are some photos of a couple of my foster babies from a few years ago. Meet Gizmo, the vole, and Mortimer, the Deer Mouse. (There’s only one photo of Mortimer, when he was just SO tiny). Both of these babies were brought into the local wildlife rescue center (where I worked at the time as a feeder for all the rehab and ambassador animals), and I agreed to foster them. I don’t have a big enough place to foster larger mammals, like raccoons and squirrels, but tiny rodents? That I could do. I syringe-fed both of them several times a day (and during the night, at first), and they were both so incredibly precious. Gizmo was released by me into a local county park (Crane Creek; pictured below). Mortimer ended up self-releasing (in other words, he escaped. :D). I trust that both of them led happy, healthy lives. At least I hope that they did.

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Brand New Babies!

- Wendy St. John 2 Comments

Some western pond turtle photos! Brand new babies, hatched in my lab:

Eventually, they’ll be head-started at a local zoo until they’re about 10 months old, at which time they’ll be released back into the habitat where we collected the eggs. The first picture is of a baby working on getting out of her shell. And the third picture was taken literally seconds after she emerged from her shell. (I was too slow with my camera, or I could have gotten it on video. I’m hoping one of the other babies will oblige; we still have a lot of eggs that have yet to hatch). Also, sorry the photos were so crappy. I need to bring in my real camera and get some better shots.

Baby Turtle Release!

- Wendy St. John 1 Comment

This is what I did last Friday. (Remember the articles I posted? Yeah)! We released the baby Western Pond Turtles (Emys marmorata) that were hatched in our lab last autumn, and raised at the Oakland Zoo. SO BIG! it was kind of sad to say goodbye to my babies (especially #201), but I sent all of them off with good wishes for happy, healthy lives, and to demonstrate their excellent fitness by having LOTS of babies. 😀

(Plus, being able to wade out into the pond is kind of the most fun thing we do all year. The water level was low this year, though. Last year, the water was up to my armpits).

Ready to go “home”
Walking through the tules
Lauren Greenwood
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201
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Bye-bye 201!
I love you!

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Today’s release team.

ME AND MY BB!

- Wendy St. John 1 Comment

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Turtle #201, aka Neville (they asked me to give him a name when he needed to have surgery; apparently, they like to make things more personal like that at the zoo). This is just a teaser … I’ll post more photos of the baby turtle release once I get them off my camera; this photo was taken by someone else. (Haha, obviously). But yeah … ME AND MY BB! Who is now swimming happily in the lake where his mama lives. I didn’t actually cry when I released him, but I came close. <3 <3 <3