Surina and Carly have been battling the marsh day after day for a great reward: almost 100 turtles processed this season so far! After just four weeks, Surina and Carly have sampled 48 Blandings turtles, 24 Painteds, and 24 snipper snaps. In this time, Carly has almost mastered the dreaded snapping turtle tail draw while Surina is getting fabulous lymph-free blood draws. The team has been hard at work saving the world!
Some updates and funny stories from the past few weeks:
A couple weeks ago we worked with the DuPage County team to sample turtles in DuPage County. One day we did not leave the lab until 9:00pm. However, even exhausted and delusional, we all went to a restaurant and had a fabulous dinner that Dr. Laura graciously covered. We also got to see the turtle dogs in training find some Blandings in the grass!
Carly ventured into the city for the first time to attend a music festival and of course it was pouring rain the whole day. She somehow managed to find her way to and from the show with some help from some other veterinary students attending the festival. This was very much out of her comfort zone and her first time using city public transportation haha.
Surina has been somehow managing to balance her brother’s wedding planning along with turtle work. She has been very busy on the weekends but still manages to help Dan induce turtles at night. Our last turtle we induced had 17 eggs! Oh, and Surina also got covered in mud when Sadie got stuck out at Pingree Forest Preserve.
Apart from catching turtles, the team has been catching other creatures in the nets as well. We have caught many crayfish (some HUGE), tadpoles, four bluegill, a leopard frog, and a few bullfrogs. Carly made friends with the last bullfrog we captured and he posed nicely on top of her hat for some photos.
Apart from Surina being a champ with the Painteds and Carly becoming a professional snapper wrangler, there are still five more weeks of sampling ahead. You never know what the marsh will bring and the team cannot wait to keep sampling!
