Blandings Turtles Recovering Due to DuPage Program

The slow-moving and rare Blandings turtles are making an uncharacteristic charge towards recovery under an ongoing program administered by the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County. This year, the program nearly doubled its number of hatchlings.

Once abundant but now threatened in Illinois, the turtle with the yellow markings and smiling face formerly was found from Quebec to the Midwest. But in DuPage County, they have found life in the fast lane harrowing. Development has encroached upon their traditional aquatic environment, and cars run them over as they attempt to cross highways.

Blandings turtles are late bloomers in the animal world and take from 14 to 20 years to reach sexual maturity. Females only lay 4 to 21 eggs at a time, with an average of 11, which they bury in six-inch holes that are vulnerable to predation. Once hatched, the babies struggle on their own to reach water. Very few reach adulthood. Only because the last fragments of their ecosystems are on Forest Preserve property have any survived.

A Forest Preserve survey undertaken in 1994 first highlighted the shrinking habitat and the high mortality rate of eggs and hatchlings. Not only were the numbers of hatchlings small, but also the county had become a sort of turtle Sun City. An alarming proportion of adults were over 30 and some were over 50.

Beginning in 1996, the district began an ambitious program to save the embattled turtles. Using radio telemetry, staff have been collecting the females and bringing them to Willowbrook Wildlife Center to lay their eggs. Afterwards, the females are immediately returned to the wild. The hatchlings live at Willowbrook for a year and then are transferred to Wheaton Park District's Cosley Zoo, where they reside in peace and safety until the age of two. Then they again go out into the real world and join nature ("Head Start for Turtles," CW, Summer '98).

"The district's program will continue to improve as we make stronger inroads into the Blandings turtle's ecology," says District Animal Ecologist Dan Thompson. "Our hope is that by restoring their habitat, reducing human impacts, and boosting populations to a more sustainable level, our efforts will lead to a self-maintaining turtle community."

— Elizabeth Riotto