Andrea ColtonViews:
Spot 1
First Week in South Carolina
Last Spotted Turtle trapping season, I spent most of my time shuttling between South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. I helped my technicians set traps at particularly rough sites, sampled water for eDNA, and occasionally popped over to track our two Eastern Box Turtles with transmitters.
This season is shaping up to be slightly less hectic, which means I have been able to run my own trap weeks—something I have missed. I trapped my first site of the season a few weeks ago in South Carolina. We attempted to sample here last year, but couldn’t get to it until May, when all the wetlands that looked best suited for Spotted Turtles were dry. I was hoping an earlier sampling event would bring us better luck.
Despite an earlier start, a lot of areas were still dry this season. Fortunately, there was one small wetland that looked great for Spotted Turtles and was holding water despite nearby wetlands being bone dry. As I started my visual encounter surveys and trap checks the day after setting traps, I felt increasingly sure that I should find a Spotted Turtle. This spot had abundant vegetation and leaf litter, shallow water where I could clearly see the bottom, and plenty of places for basking.
My confidence didn’t have much time to grow as I got to the second trap in the wetland. I didn’t even have to pull it out of the water to see the distinctive yellow spots hiding in one corner of the trap—I had caught an adult female.
We do our best to estimate time spent processing turtles so we can subtract it from our visual encounter survey time. A decent portion of my processing time that day was spent dancing in excitement and holding my phone as high as I could to get enough service to tell everyone.
My luck continued Thursday as I noticed a Spotted Turtle basking. Typically, your chances of catching a basking turtle when you are a decent distance from it are low, but I was determined to move at a glacial pace to avoid scaring it into the water. I took a few steps, stopped, took a few more, and stopped again…
Eventually I got within a meter of the turtle, but it finally decided it had enough of me and slipped into the water. Two big steps and I was there, but it was too late.
Unfortunately for the turtle, I had extra traps and a dislike of being bested. I set a trap right by that basking log, hoping I would catch it overnight. The next day, I walked up to the trap and saw one of the more frustrating sights you can see when turtle trapping: a Spotted Turtle basking on top of the trap.
For a second time, a turtle got away from me, but the same couldn’t be said for the two new female Spotted Turtles waiting for me in the trap. Between trapped and basking turtles, I found at least five new individuals—a great start to the South Carolina trapping season.
Spot 2
Second Week in South Carolina
For my second week in South Carolina, I ended up not too far from last week’s site. I had never been to this site before, so I spent the first half of the day looking for water. Luckily, one of the roads near the entrance went right through a large wetland that I knew I could get two trapping plots in, so I aimed to set them last.
I made my way over to an area that looked like it should have shallow water and found it was mostly dry, but it did have a small ditch of water running through it and a couple of small areas that were holding water after recent rains. I figured if the wetland normally holds turtles, they might be seeking refuge in the few areas of water left.
Next, I found a spot that appeared flooded but had decent vegetation, so I set some traps along the margins. I headed back to the large wetland I had passed earlier in the day with the intention of setting my plots along the road. However, when I set the first of the plots, I realized there was nice habitat further back from the road. I ended up setting my fourth plot back there and left the original intended fourth spot without traps.
When I went to check traps the next day, I was greeted with every single trap in my second plot not only on dry land, but several meters from the nearest water. It turns out I had set my traps within the waters of a severely flooded stream. Despite the large amount of water spilling onto the land surrounding the stream, it had all receded in less than 24 hours.
While it was frustrating to lose out on trapping nights, I was ultimately happy about this turn of events because it gave me an excuse to move all the traps over to the portion of the wetland that hadn’t received traps the day before.
Unfortunately, the first part of the week was cold, so there were not many reptiles or amphibians out and my traps remained empty until the last trap of the day on Thursday. After catching nothing all week and having found turtles at a new site the week before, I thought the chances of catching a Spotted Turtle at a second new site were slim, but I was proven wrong.
I pulled up my last trap and was pleasantly surprised to find a small male Spotted Turtle, probably just on the threshold of being considered an adult. The following day, I discovered he had made his way back into the same trap, but this time brought two additional females with him.
Luck was evidently still on my side, as this trap was one that had been found on dry land and would have stayed in the flooded area had the water not receded. Despite the drought that continues to plague the Southeast, it’s reassuring to find that some areas are still retaining enough water to support turtles this spring.
