After a week in the field, the days following get pretty crazy! The first thing we do upon our return to the lab, is unpack the truck and put the samples in the freezer. Most days, we still have unfinished lab work to complete for the turtles we sampled that day in the field, so we will do that before unpacking anything else!
In order to prepare for future field days, the pencil cases and backpacks are cleaned, and the probes are sterilized in the autoclave. Once that is done, the pelicans and backpacks are restocked, samples are pre-labelled and everything placed in a pile to be packed into the truck once more!
This week, Turtle Tour 2020 got some experience sampling Eastern Box Turtles (EBTs). These turtles are a bit harder to find but over the course of four days we found 31 in total. While we tend to have issues with Ornate turtles being too active during our exams, Easterns have no problem sitting still! These turtles like to “box” up and refuse to come out even for the most convincing forms of bribery!
Look at this video for all things turtle team during our week with EBTs!
