Chonkosaurus, a rather overweight common snapping turtle found in the Chicago River, has made themself quite the cook county celebrity but during our time out in the field we came across a hefty spiny softshell turtle that we believe could be the perfect foe. Kami and I come across a plethora of common snapping turtles [...]
You all know we find and sample turtles for research. But what does that actually mean?? Today, we’ll go through a step by step of exactly how our process works. And there’s going to be turtle pictures if you weren’t already going to keep reading. First of all, we catch turtles two main ways, at [...]
Have you ever noticed how fast time passes during breaks? It is already the end of week 4 of summer break (!!!). I guess Janet Jackson was right; it is funny how time flies when you are having fun. As another field week is approaching, the team has been working a little extra hard this [...]
This week started off quite a bit rocky but it didn't stop us from checking every trap, empty or not. With nesting season starting, we had anticipated that we were not going to trap as many turtles. This made each turtle we sampled that much more special. Bill is intensely observing Nick in action [...]
This week Dr. Laura Adamovicz and Sam Johnson are exploring Chain'O Lakes. They have done questionable things with kayaks... Very few turtles have been found, thus the turtles have become more valuable. https://youtube.com/shorts/vFUn_OZDDro?feature=share
The Chronicles of Turtle Girl and Snake Girl Starring: Turtle Girl: Kami Snake Girl: Kate On this weeks episode of, “The Chronicles of Turtle Girl and Snake Girl”, our fierce duo travels up to northern Cook County to set out tricky turtle traps and scout for slithery snakes. It was a brisk Tuesday morning. Paul, [...]
It's week 3 here in Lake County! After a long weekend, Varun and I were refreshed and ready to find some turtles! We had 74 traps set and our eyes were peeled for turtles out basking. Unfortunately, with the high heats, turtles weren’t interested in basking on the side of the pond. Can you blame [...]
This week is brought to you by over 90F weather and case of turtle fever. Though this week was shorter, it did not stop us from tightening our waders and jumping into the marsh looking for our turtle friends. We even had Dr. Allender and the newly Dr. Alexis Davidson, an old Kane County [...]
This week, it was time to roll up our sleeves, put on a lab coat, and analyze some of our own box turtle samples! We also had the opportunity to help our zoo residents with their projects, assist with other WEL student projects, and continue making progress on our own summer lab projects! Perfect, perfect, [...]
This past week the Walder team and Dr. Kaitlin Moorehead (Ph.D. student in WEL) worked with Du Page field biologist, Dan Thompson, to trap turtles in Du Page County. Dan Thompson has been lead biologist of the Blanding’s turtle restoration project since ~2015 and has kept it going despite many obstacles the project has faced. [...]
