While adult turtles have very high survival rates from year to year and can live exceptionally long times, the life expectancy of a hatchling is very short. Indeed, most turtle nests don’t survive (nest failure rates are often greater than 90%), and out of the small percentage of hatchlings that do make it to the surface, the odds are not good during their first year of life. With soft shells offering minimal protection, almost every predator out there would happily eat any hatchling turtle they find, which comparatively speaking, are like little savory Oreos scuttling across the landscape. Raccoons, foxes, skunks, and mink are the usual suspects, but the list of potential hatchling predators is very long and also includes some unsuspecting species like American Crows, Ravens, and even chipmunks (at least one study found that most Blanding’s Turtle hatchlings were eaten by chipmunks before the turtles ever made it to the water). That is why when we began monitoring Wood Turtle nesting habitat last year, we were VERY surprised with what we found.