That’s a wrap!
The summer of 2026 as a Turtle Team Leader has officially come to an end. This summer the box turtle team found a total of 74 live turtles and 7 shells, giving us an overall total of 81! While it is always a bit of a heartbreak to find a shell, it can still give valuable epidemiological information. As discussed in one of our earlier posts in the summer, you can even drill the shells to find evidence of disease and potentially get insight as to why the turtle died.
Recapturing an individual provides crucial insight into incidence and prevalence of disease within a population, which is why those notch codes are carefully performed and recorded. Recapturing an individual over the years can provide insight as to when a population became diseased by a pathogen. Though we are always excited to find a turtle to examine and collect samples with care, I imagine the turtles are thinking “These people again?!?!”. This year, we recaptured 37 turtles that we had found in previous years, some of which were once handled by Dr. Allender 10 years ago! Whether found once or multiple times by Turtle Team over the years, each individual has helped contribute to science! These shelled friends were all unique in their own ways but here are a small data summary of some of the information collected:
Clearly the summer was full of a lot of turtles, but as future veterinarians, turtles are not the only species we learn about. Now the fun, and stress, of school starts for the three of us and our volunteers. After three back-to-back summers, Becca goes off to start her third year of veterinary school with it focusing on pharmacology, junior surgery, and how to treat patients. After two summers in a row, Grace leaves the box turtle team ready to start her third year of vet school as well. With one summer under her belt, Tatum is ready for her very first year of veterinary school. Hopefully, you all can appreciate how incredible a turtle is next time you see one about, I think all of us will! Until next time!
