UC Davis Arboretum & Public Garden » Western Pond Turtle Research

Western pond turtle habitat improvement project update

Katie Hetrick — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 02:40:32 +0000

Last spring the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden team led by Andrew Fulks, Director of UC Davis Putah Creek Riparian Reserve and Campus Naturalized Lands, collaborated with multiple partners to not only improve the Arboretum waterway, but provide a stable environment for campus researchers to study native western pond turtles. Thanks to David Phillips and Michael Fan from the UC Davis Utilities department, this channel was regraded to create an area of unimpeded water flow with the added benefit of facilitating ongoing turtle study, researchers from UC Davis Wildlife and Fisheries Biology identified a habitat solution, the California Department of Fish and Game allowed our team to collect tules in one of their wildlife areas and volunteers from UC Davis student group Wild Campus assisted in collection of the tules from the Yolo County Water Basin as well as installation of the plants along the UC Davis Arboretum waterway. Erosion-control fabric and native seed will be installed on the banks adjacent to the tule planting this fall. To read more about the history of this project and find out how our teams were able to accomplish this task click here. Check out a slideshow of the tule harvest and transplantation here.

Found! Good home for Florida softshell turtle found in Arboretum waterway

Katie Hetrick — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 17:14:56 +0000

As you have read previously, the GATEways Project team has been working closely with researchers from Wildlife and Fisheries Biology to create a habitat for the native Western pond turtle at the far west end of the Arboretum. (Read more here.) On a related note, researchers from the same lab were able to capture a non-native predator of the Western pond turtle which has been eluding capture while living in the Arboretum waterway for four (4) years--a wily Florida softshell turtle that they've named Piggle Wiggle Pipsqueak--an apt name once you've seen his unusual nose! They needed to find a home for this impressive creature, but not just any home. Piggle Wiggle Pipsqueak needed a pond of at least 20 square feet stocked with small fish to satisfy his dietary needs and they found one! Piggle Wiggle Pipsqueak now happily resides in a moat surrounding the lemur island at the Micke Grove Zoo, in Lodi. This story ended well, but the lesson remains...dumping any animal, especially non-native species, in the Arboretum, or anywhere, upsets our ecosystem and causes the animal (and our researchers) unnecessary stress! View a slideshow of photos. For turtle-curious types, check out an excerpt of the email that Adam Clause, Junior Researcher, sent about the capture on April 4, 2012...

I am pleased to announce that, as of 3:15pm this afternoon, the long-time resident adult Florida softshell turtle, Apalone ferox, from the UC Davis Arboretum has at last been captured. You can all sleep well tonight.

The turtle was caught with a large dipnet while basking at the far west end of the Arboretum, on the north shore ~100 feet east of the pine trees growing at the waterway margin. It is, contrary to most people’s expectations from field observations, a male animal. The species identification is clear. Diagnostic characters include the turtle’s oblong carapace, raised marginal carapacial rim, partial secondary nasal septa, and multiple rows of rounded hemispherical bumps at the leading edge of the carapace.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story behind this turtle, it is a former pet that was released into the Arboretum by unknown person(s) more than four years ago. It has defied all attempts at capture until now. This has included months of cumulative trapping efforts with submersible turtle traps, several weeks of fyke netting, and prior dipnetting attempts. A wily creature, to be sure.

The turtles are back!

Katie Hetrick — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:20:24 +0000

A couple of weeks ago a grading project was taking place along our Putah Creek waterway to provide a research venue for faculty and students in Wildlife and Conservation Biology, create a much-needed waterway improvement for our campus utilities department, AND restore the habitat of the native Western Pond Turtle. Read more about this unique collaboration here. Good news! The turtles are already back despite the area's current lack of landscaping. As of Saturday, a representative from the department of evolution and ecology reported that he saw several Western Pond Turtles basking on the newly-engineered, scalloped eastern shoreline. What's next? Staff from the Putah Creek Riparian Reserve will coordinate revegetating the area with seeds from native grasses at UC Davis's own Russell Ranch. They will also work to locate a source for tule, and work with volunteers to plant it.

Waterway & turtle habitat upgrade underway

Katie Hetrick — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:12:58 +0000

At the very west end of the Arboretum, construction crews are working to complete a project on a channel of Putah Creek that will not only improve our campus utility operations, but restore a native turtle habitat. We may be the only campus in history to have the fortune of meeting both goals with one project! From an operations perspective, the problem with this channel has been the overgrowth of cattails and marsh plants clogging an intake pump which drains the Arboretum waterway. In order to prevent this obstruction our campus utilities department seasonally removes the plants to keep the waterway clear—an easy solution to a routine maintenance issue. The problem is that in doing so they unknowingly disrupted Wildlife and Conservation Biology researchers studying the Western Pond Turtle—a native species that uses the cattails as cover and calls the marshy channel home. Now, as a result of collaboration between our Public Garden team, our campus utilities department and researchers from Wildlife and Conservation Biology we are working out a solution to meet both their goals: 1) Construction crews are deepening the channel directly in front of the intake pump. Deeper water will prevent cattails from growing and allow the channel water unimpeded access to the pump; and, 2) The edges of the channel will be scalloped and/or terraced to provide an area that is shallow enough for the cattails to grow, and for turtles to live. With this collaboration we are gaining a landscape that serves our campus research, aids in the repopulation of a native turtle species, is sustainable and cost-effective. Our campus utilities department is paying for the implementation of this project with the funds that would normally be put towards routine maintenance services. In addition, Wild Campus, a student group comprised of naturalists, has volunteered to help landscape the area with native marsh plants. This is an example of inter-disciplinary collaboration that we hope will serve as a model for other landscape maintenance opportunities throughout campus.

Oak Grove Meadow conversion and turtle habitat

Katie Hetrick — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 23:15:00 +0000

About 3 weeks after seeding we have germination at the Oak Grove Meadow! What you see in the photo below is a small Nasella pulchra. Now we wait, and irrigate as necessary if rain doesn’t come.

: Oak Grove meadow conversion

As project manager Andrew Fulks says, “From little seeds grow big meadows.” What Andrew didn’t know when he began this meadow conversion project is that big meadows also provide the perfect nesting habitat for native turtles! This conversion project began as a way to decrease water usage and maintenance hours for a little-used lawn (Read more here.), now it will potentially become vital nesting ground the Western Pond Turtle—a serendipitous outcome! Our team is now going to be working closely with researchers and the campus utilities department on ways to protect the turtles and coordinate maintenance in this area.