Saving the East End's Diamondback Turtles

We hope you read the recent story at 27east.com about the lady who saved the lives of several young recently hatched diamondback turtles, by putting them in Scallop Pond in North Sea [“Baby Turtles Released in Scallop Pond in Southampton,” 27east.com, July 10].

We have several turtle species on Long Island, but only one, the diamondback, spends most, or all, of its life in saltwater. Female diamondbacks from our bays and harbors come ashore to land to oviposit their eggs.

A big “hooray” for Dr. Marie Altieri, shown releasing a baby diamondback into Scallop Pond in the hamlet of North Sea, which lies at the end of a long system of narrow streamways that starts in Peconic Bay.

Occasionally, this rare turtle will be found in fresh water, but it much prefers sea water. The males almost never come on shore, in keeping with the behaviors of male freshwater snapping, painted and spotted turtles, which keep to fresh water while their females go on land to deposit their eggs.

Long Island is turtle poor. Turtles, especially box turtles, are slow moving. The two hard shells, carapace on top and plastron on the bottom, keep the box turtle protected from most predators, but, unfortunately, offer no defense against the tires of automobiles. A few motor vehicles that kill turtles do it on purpose, but by far most of the turtle hits are by vehicles whose occupants fail to see the turtle crossing.

Fortunately, there are people, mostly locals, who patrol the roads on foot, on bikes or in motor vehicles. Their mission is to find the turtle before it gets run over and put it safely on the side of the road where the turtle was heading.

There isn’t much help to offer a turtle that is crushed, but, surprisingly, many box turtles survive hits and can be repatriated after receiving a lot of care. For more than 30 years, the Evelyn Alexander Wildlife Rescue Center in Hampton Bays has been taking care of injured turtles, and now an offshoot of that site, Turtle Rescue Center of the Hamptons, has been looking after our sick and injured turtles for several years now.

When I was 6 years old, I already had several box turtles that I cared for in the backyard of our house in Mattituck. I collected them by catching them in the woods across the street. I would lie on the forest floor and listen for any noises in the leaves until I was almost sure that a box turtle was in the area. (Box turtles don’t utter sounds.) I would get up and go to the spot from which the sounds came, and 25 percent of the time there was a box turtle moving in the leaves.

I knew nothing about the longevity of Long Island’s box turtles — that some had been found to be over 100 years old.

When I worked for East Hampton, there was a fellow worker who was a sign maker. They made turtle awareness signs that my staff put up in certain conspicuous spots on town roads where they would be seen.

One that was put up on the roadside in front of a house that would become a British Beatle pop singer’s residence in Amagansett attracted a lot of comments. A few were stolen and put up on the walls of college students’ residences. We weren’t able to tell if they saved any turtles.

Now, when I ride through East Hampton, I see different signs up for saving box turtles. Let’s hope they work, because you can’t teach turtles not to cross roads.

Except for runovers, the combination of bony tops and bottoms, like the quills of porcupines, does a good job of protecting box turtles from predation. However, when it comes to reproduction of the species, the very hard surfaces of the plastrons makes it exceptionally difficult for male box turtles to successfully mount females for insemination of sperm.

In nearly 80 years of box turtle study, I have seen numerous cases of males slipping off females. One has to wonder if some females are able to reproduce without the help of males.