Terrapins vs Toyotas

The Diamondback Terrapin gets its name from the pyramid-shaped bumps on its upper shell, which look like diamonds studding its body. Unfortunately for the terrapin, its shell is not as hard as a diamond.

Terrapins leave their coastal wetlands home for only one reason - to lay their eggs. They slowly scratch their way to higher, drier ground, which can sometimes be far from the water. On their way, they often cross paths with another animal going the other direction, toward the beach for sun and fun.

Luckily for terrapins in New Jersey, they have friends at The Wetlands Institute. Students and volunteers in the institute's programs have constructed fences along coastal roads, to help keep the terrapins off the pavement. When one does get on the road but doesn't make it across, they remove any viable eggs from the body and incubate them for later release. And when terrapins lay their eggs on the institute's property, they cover the nest with a mesh enclosure to keep predators away from the eggs and newly hatched babies.

My son's Boy Scout troop visited The Wetlands Institute on a day when they were removing terrapins from two predator enclosures. The photo below shows an enclosure with its top removed, and a student getting ready to dig out the hatchlings.


And here they are, fresh from their sandy nests. They will spend the rest of the day in their Rubbermaid residence, safe inside the building. They will be released into the bay at night while the hungry seagulls are sleeping.


If you are ever near Stone Harbor, New Jersey, I'm sure you would enjoy a visit to The Wetlands Institute. You can visit their terrapin conservation website here to learn more about these animals. Terrapins are the only species of turtle adapted to live in the brackish water of coastal wetlands, as opposed to sea turtles, freshwater turtles, and tortoises (which live on land). You can even "Adopt-A-Terrapin"!

If you aren't lucky enough to be at The Wetlands Institute when they are rescuing terrapins, you can still have a ball sloshing around in the mud on their nature "trail".


Top photo courtesy of Wikimedia

Keep America Beautiful

At the risk of boring my (admittedly small) audience, I am writing my third post in a row about Native American respect for our land. I don't know what made me think of this, I guess I had my mind on the topic and it forced this up from the depths of my memory.

I was only 8 years old when this Public Service Announcement first aired on Earth Day in 1971. It made a huge impression on me as a little kid, and it still chokes me up today. Along with my years in the Boy Scouts, I think this ad really shaped my views about our environment. And the music is a case study in building drama and emotion.

Native American Conservation

While we were at the American Indian Arts Festival this weekend (see my prior post), I bought a copy of "A Brief History of the Powhatan Renape Nation" by Chief Roy Crazy Horse. This is an excellent and very readable history of this Native American Nation. The most powerful parts are where Chief Crazy Horse tells the story of the European conquest of America from the standpoint of those who were "discovered".

This being a nature blog, I would like to pass along the following quote from the book:

"When your grandfathers came to these shores and met my grandfathers, they found here a people who were healthy, who had good lives, who enjoyed an unparalleled independence, who looked after themselves and the old people, who saw to it that no one was in want.

"You found here a beautiful land, where game and fish abounded, where the water in any river was fit to drink, where the air was pure and clear. Truly, your ancestors found a paradise. This was the land which the Creator had given to us in the beginning of time, and we had taken good care of it.

"Your grandfathers learned about democracy from the Native People they met. You marveled that our leaders always consulted their councils, which consist of all the Old and Wise. And the Youth was also consulted ...

"Now you are many and we are few. But our strength never depended on numbers - even one person alone can represent the Truth. And so we still speak out, few as we are, with a moral authority, calling upon you to renew the vision which our grandfathers had.

"Join with us to bring back democracy, where the leadership moves on the Breath of the People, where there is justice for all.

"Join with us in restoring the land to health, making the water of the rivers once again good to drink, the air fit to breathe."

To read an (even briefer) history of the Powhatan online, or to order this fascinating book, click here.

Somewhere in the Swamps of Jersey

My wife and I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert last night, at Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands. The concert was fantastic, with lots of classic songs and Bruce a great showman as always.

But what I want to talk about is the two hawks we saw soaring over the stadium. I thought that was pretty odd. After all, we were in the Meadowlands, the quintessential Jersey garbage dump and surely barren of wildlife (at least wildlife without three heads). Bruce even sang two songs lamenting the "swamps of Jersey". I thought we might stumble across Jimmy Hoffa, but not a red-tailed hawk.

It turns out that the Meadowlands have really been turned around since I was a kid. According to the Meadowlands Development Commission, 5000 tons of trash a day were dumped here in 1969. The swamp was seen as a wasteland, with no other purpose but to be filled in and built upon.

Fortunately the Commission dropped the word "Development" from its name in 2001, and started thinking about conservation. By 2004 they had produced a comprehensive conservation and rehabilitation plan. Nature is definitely starting to recover. You can even canoe in the Meadowlands again, like the guys in the painting above (Duck Hunters on the Hoboken Marshes, 1849, William Tylee Ranney).

For more info, check out the websites of the NJ Meadowlands Commission or Hackensack Riverkeeper.