How a Cambridge, Ont. organization is keeping turtles out of trouble

Turtles are on the move this time of year, so it’s not uncommon to come across them in dangerous spots.

“We do, unfortunately, get quite a few calls, especially in the spring, about injured turtles,” said Alissa Fraser, a conservation technician with the Rare Charitable Research Reserve.

The Cambridge, Ont. organization is doing what they can to protect the reptiles across Waterloo Region and Wellington County.

“That’s obviously a very large space. So we depend on community members to actually go out, find the turtles and report them to us,” said Fraser.

Conservation technicians, like Fraser, then go to at-risk areas and collect eggs to incubate them. This year they only have painted turtles and snapping turtles in their care.

“We have a few thousand turtles and I think a few hundred of them started to hatch [Wednesday] morning. So the crew is inside measuring and weighing them and making sure they’re all in their buckets, ready to go and we’ll start releasing them soon,” she said.

If the hatchlings are found in a safe enough place, crews will monitor them where they are and place nest protectors over them.

The public can help too by being mindful of areas that are treacherous to turtles.

“Places like driveways, parking lots, road shoulders, volleyball courts [and] construction sites who dig them out of the excavated soil all the time,” Fraser said.

But beware – you shouldn’t pick up a turtle and move it unless you’re getting them out of harm’s way.

“If one is moving across the road, you don’t want to pick it up and drive it to a pond that is really nice because you don’t know what kind of diseases or parasites you might be moving,” explained Fraser.

Who to call and when?

The Rare Charitable Research Reserve said they don’t deal with injured turtles themselves.

Any injured or dead turtle is dealt with by the Ontario Turtle Conservation Centre. They can be reached at 705-741-5000.

“If there is a turtle hit, we can take the eggs and sometimes we can still recover them and have hatchlings come out of those eggs,” said Fraser.

The Rare Charitable Research Reserve, meantime, is more focused on prevention and artificially incubating the eggs.

If you see a turtle or eggs in a potentially dangerous area, contact the organization at 519-650-9336.