Lauren Got Stuck in the Rain I wouldn’t say got stuck as much as I would say willingly chose to get out of the vehicle while it was raining, with a radio antennae in hand, to track turtles. Rain or shine, during nesting season it is important to know where our turtle friends are because [...]
Our next field week took us to Stephen A. Forbes State Park in Illinois for a week of stumbling upon turtles and camping under the stars! With a forecast of thunderstorms for the duration of the week we were prepared for an exciting few days. We left school at 5AM with a caravan of students and [...]
Maurer Nested First The first turtle nested! She made a run for it, dug a hole and layed her eggs like a pro. She is a newly tracked turtle this year so we weren’t sure when or where to expect her to nest but she did so and it was all exciting! Until… the next [...]
This week we had the opportunity to work with some real monsters: Alligator Snapping Turtles (AST’s)!! As part of a reintroduction project headed by our biologist lab mate, Ethan, we were able to help take health samples from turtles that have been raised and reintroduced to the wild. Tracking, diving for, and wrangling these [...]
Our second week turned out to be a whirlwind tour through several Illinois counties and turtle species! We were lucky enough to sample ornate box turtles and Blanding’s turtles within a few days! We missed our large crew of fellow veterinary students that we sampled eastern box turtles with last week but got to [...]
Kirsten Writes a Note to Self You will also see a picture of me working at my lab bench with a taped note saying “Literally please wait 5 minutes OMG.” As you can imagine, lab work does not always run smoothly. I am spending a lot of lab time this summer doing DNA extractions, and it [...]
We Felt Eggs It is that time of season where female Blanding’s turtles are becoming gravid (carrying eggs). These turtles have delayed maturation, reaching sexual maturity between 14-20 years of age, which this one of the reasons for an unsustainable population. The amount of turtles that survive to this age, avoiding habitat destruction, road mortality, [...]
Two weeks in and we are already famous (and a little rich in terms of vet student status since we passed our first pay day). Well not really, but we did appear in the background of a few news stories featuring LCFPD’s Blanding’s turtle head-starting program. What we really care about getting famous is our state-endangered [...]
The 2018 season of Turtle Team started off with a bang! Dogs were running everywhere, turtles were being found right and left, and everyone was having a blast! For those unfamiliar with what Turtle Team is, this week we will be giving a brief overview of the project. Turtle Team is an ongoing research project [...]
I had not planned on going to TN for the summer until about 3 months ago when I was asked by Dr. Allender how much I wanted to stay in Champaign- Urbana. As you can imagine, while I love my little school town, I was not opposed to leaving the area where I spend 99% [...]
