Ben StegengaViews:
It’s been a long, intense spring-and-summer Spotted Turtle field season, and Kira Cates played a major role in both long-term population monitoring as well as in research investigating the effects of nest microclimate on Spotted Turtle development and performance. This was Kira’s second term with us since Fall 2024, but her first experience working with Spotted Turtles. These turtles can be really difficult to study, particularly in the Southeast, but we’re really happy with what we were able to accomplish this year. Here, Kira describes some of her experiences from this season, recounting some of the challenges of fieldwork and how this secretive little turtle has impacted her.
– Ben Stegenga
To know me is to know my love of snakes. I rarely suffer through a conversation without mentioning the all-too-often persecuted animals in some form or fashion. That is why, when The Orianne Society made room in the budget for me to work as a part-time herpetological technician, I jumped at the opportunity. That position held no shortage of opportunities to grow — from gaining experience with a broad array of field techniques like drift fencing and trap setting, to assisting on Eastern Indigo Snake surveys in habitat bountiful in cacti and rattlesnakes (an absolute dream for someone like me). That is not to mention all of the adventures that would forge such important friendships for me. It would be a difficult task not to become close to people when road cruising late into the night, finding lifers, traipsing through wetlands with territorial mother gators, transporting hundreds of coverboards in the Georgia summer heat, or dealing with car engines on the verge of combustion (though this trend of friendship and car problems has held true with almost everyone I’ve met while working here). Overall, it was a wonderful experience, and I got my fair share of snake experience in the process. However, what came next would be completely different for me.
As my part-time position came to an end, I was offered a full-time seasonal position — this time working primarily with Spotted Turtles. I had always held somewhat of an indifference toward turtles, appreciating them for their ancient lineage, unique adaptations, and the vital roles they play in their respective environments, but never actively pursuing a role to research or work with them. However, I place immense value in garnering a broad range of experiences and diversifying one’s skill set (you are reading the words of someone who has been a teacher, a butcher, an aquarist, worked in a freshwater ecology lab, and lived abroad to work with macaws, just to name a few things). This, paired with the fact that I wished to make my graduate application more competitive through additional field experience, led me to accept this position. I never could have imagined how much this decision would impact my life.
In the beginning, my main focus was trapping and monitoring the Spotted Turtle population at a long-term site and attaching radio transmitters to reproductive females in order to track them once the nesting season began. There was a lot to learn here, as these were new sites, new protocols, and new animals for me. I still remember the first time I saw one and thought that this had to be the most adorable species of turtle in existence. I’m often heard comparing them to Beanie Babies with their big, round eyes that seem too cartoonishly cute to belong to a real wild animal. It was during this time that I focused on learning as much as I could about sound scientific practices, proper field techniques, and, of course, the ecology of the Spotted Turtle. My goal was to grow professionally as a scientist, and now that I was given the opportunity to do so, I didn’t plan to let that go to waste.
After a few months of trapping efforts, it was finally time to shift my focus to tracking gravid females and hopefully finding some nests. This would turn out to be a major change of pace from trapping, which was a rather routine affair. Instead, the females that I tracked seemed to love to throw unexpected curveballs to keep my life interesting (at least, that is how I choose to look at it). The area was thick with treefalls, at times consisting of ten or more trees, and there were a few females that used them throughout the season. I often found myself forgoing the desire to remain dry and fumbling around on my hands and knees in the middle of such a treefall, attempting to find one of these avocado-sized turtles in the water while being smacked with sticks and briars. Speaking of briars, that brings me to another subset of our delightfully difficult females: the ones that chose to hang out in the center of a blackberry patch. It is no exaggeration when I say that this patch was nearly a foot taller than me in some places and so incredibly thick that a machete was rendered nearly useless. At some point, I simply gave up and began to use my own body as a battering ram to push through the thickets of thorns. On top of that, our tracking efforts were made even more challenging by regularly scheduled inclement weather (including a surprise bout of hail!), sweltering heat, and, as no Georgia summer would be complete without, seemingly endless mosquitoes.
However, as much difficulty as I faced during this time, I never truly felt overwhelmed or discouraged. In fact, I welcomed the challenges, as I had grown to know and love the animals that I was doing it for — the species, yes, but I quite literally mean the individuals that I tracked over those months. I came to know each of their respective personalities and regular behaviors, and an admittedly large part of me found their difficult nature to be rather endearing. I began to be glad of their cryptic nature, believing that it would keep them protected, seeing as they are an imperiled species with a plethora of potential predators. Also, I believe that it was this level of personal knowledge and familiarity that helped me to be more effective at finding nests. That would be an adventure full of its own trials and tribulations, but also one that would be doubly rewarding.
Once I could feel eggs within the body cavity of a female — a task I became rather proficient at (I was actually the person to detect the first recorded Spotted Turtle with a fourth clutch within one season!) — I would attach a thread spool to her carapace. That thread spool would leave a trail for me to follow, allowing me to track her movements and hopefully make it possible to discern her quarter-sized nest from the rest of the landscape. Of course, most days they did not nest, leaving me to gather near-invisible thread that had been tangled through masses of sticks and branches in the water. However, when I would track a female who was no longer gravid, I would carefully follow the thread, focusing on movements that appeared to be potential nesting attempts. Judging which of these movements were potential nesting attempts versus what were simply normal movements definitely became easier over time as I continued to observe each female. However, there were still times when I spent hours overturning every leaf along a trail, getting completely covered in poison ivy in an attempt to find a nest. This was the ultimate test of truly thinking like the animal, and I loved it. It was interesting to see the variation between females in their pre-nesting behaviors and nest site preferences. I began to be able to predict with some degree of confidence (though certainly not with perfect accuracy) what each female would do just before she nested, and even what type of nest site she would choose. Something about this relationship became very special to me — to come to know something that was still wild and non-human. I even felt like the land came to know me, as much as land can know anyone. I began to notice game trails made by my own two feet from walking the same paths each day, finally having found the easiest routes between areas of the wetland that could otherwise be incredibly difficult to navigate. There was a certain affection and pride that I held, being so closely connected to those animals and to that place. There was only one thing that could hold a candle to how special this was to me, and that was what this work had all been for in the first place: hatchlings!
Much excitement, countless hours, and many tubes of Tecnu later, the nesting season finally came to an end after our famous fourth-clutcher, as I affectionately call her (she is famous to me!), finally laid her last nest. The day Ben and I removed all of their transmitters was a long, physically exhausting one in which I emotionally said goodbye to each of my beloved turtles, who were likely more than happy to see me go. We finally removed the transmitter from the last turtle late in the evening after a telemetry fiasco in which Ben crawled up underneath a rootball while I found myself hanging upside down between two fallen trees (I told you, these turtles love to find difficult places to hunker down). From there, all that was left to do was wait for hatchlings! This, as it would turn out, would be largely uneventful. It seemed like a lifetime until the first hatchling finally emerged. However, there is a major plot twist here: though I painstakingly checked each nest multiple times a day for weeks, the first hatchling emerged the day after I left for a holiday. Not only that, but the second hatchling emerged within the week, both discovered by other people who had taken over in my stead. Though I was admittedly a bit annoyed at the irony of this, the overwhelming feeling was one of relief that I had done everything correctly and excitement that the project would be a success. It meant that I had successfully contributed to the understanding and conservation of the turtle species I had grown so fond of. Besides, it would only take another week before I would finally find an emerging hatchling of my own, and then several more in the following weeks.
Eventually, all of the viable nests hatched. I was correct in predicting that the hatchlings would be adorable, but I could not possibly have imagined to what extent. About the size of the end of your thumb, they are tiny, with bright little spots on their carapace and great, big, glittering eyes that seem to be larger than their bodies. They were entertaining little creatures to watch. While some were quite reserved, hiding in their eggs for extended periods of time, others broke out of their shells quickly and with much enthusiasm, seemingly indifferent to the presence of a human. It was during this routine of daily nest checks that I began to reflect on all that I had learned throughout the past year. I had certainly grown as a scientist, as I had wished, and felt much more confident about my decision-making and knowledge in the field. I had a rather well-rounded set of experiences with a broad range of wildlife, and though I spend much time reading and studying in an effort to learn more, these hands-on experiences allowed me to absorb and understand so much more of what I read. What else could I have even wished for — except maybe some more snake experience? However, that was a wish that would soon be granted.
After my role in the Spotted Turtle project came to completion, I took some time off, which I used to visit with family and volunteer on some other projects back home in Louisiana. Now, I am once again officially employed with The Orianne Society, this time as the Eastern Indigo Snake technician. Though I will miss my turtles, I am beyond excited to be getting more snake-centered experience, especially with a species as interesting and unique as the Eastern Indigo Snake (which just so happens to be my favorite snake). I am looking forward to learning, understanding, and being so deeply impacted by a new species, just as I was with my beloved Spotted Turtles.
