Researcher working to survey snapping turtle population health in N.B.

Snapping turtle populations across Canada are declining and one researcher is on a mission to gauge the health of the reptiles in New Brunswick.

"Although we don't have the data from New Brunswick to show declines, we do know that they have the same threats in New Brunswick as they do elsewhere," said Connie Browne, a research associate at the New Brunswick Museum. 

"So most likely, they're declining in New Brunswick as well."

Browne said the decline of snapping turtles has a lot to do with human influence.

Thanks to a dearth of natural predators and the protection offered by their shells, Browne said snapping turtles have a high rate of survival and often live to be 50 to 100 years old. She said they don't even start reproducing until around 20 years old. 

But human activity has introduced new threats to turtles, like being run over by cars in the road or machinery in agricultural fields, or getting caught accidentally by fishers. 

Browne said that although snapping turtles' eggs have the highest mortality rate, it's the deaths of adult turtles that causes the population decline.

"That turtle has had to survive for at least 20 years with all the dangers of an egg and a hatchling and a young turtle to get to that large size," said Browne. "And it's just starting to get the opportunity to reproduce and try to replace itself."

Determining population health in N.B.

Browne recently spent six weeks in the field doing research on New Brunswick's snapping turtles. She said she went to sites that had documented records from the past, but none in the last 10 years. This included a couple of sites along Hammond River.

Five of the six sites she went to didn't have any snapping turtles. She said she ran into people at the Hammond River and Mispec River watersheds and nobody had seen snapping turtles recently. 

But Browne did catch six turtles at the Pocologan River site. She didn't see any near Durham Bridge, but was able to confirm their presence thanks to photos some local residents showed her.

When Browne caught the turtles at the Pocologan site, she measured their shell, which she said is a good way to tell a turtle's age. She said a healthy population should have all different sizes, meaning there's adults and juveniles. 

"If [there] were no juveniles, that might be an indication that there's something happening to the nests, maybe high predation rates on the nest," said Browne. "If you don't have any really old turtles, that could tell us that there's something happening to the adults."

She also looked at sex ratio. A lack of female snapping turtles could point to something happening to turtles as they move to nesting beaches. 

Browne said the site in Pocologan was "in good shape," with a good mix of juveniles and adults and males and females. 

She said the site near Fredericton had lots of great habitat, but she did identify some threats. These include turtles nesting on dirt roads where grading machines could destroy their nests. She also identified an all-terrain vehicle trail where smaller turtles were getting hit. 

Browne plans to pass this information on to the government. 

She asked New Brunswick residents to help out with the research by taking photos of turtles they see and sending them to her at the museum. She said experts will review the picture and identify the type of turtle. Then, the photo becomes research-grade data, said Browne. 

"It'd be really great if people [could] send as many observations in as they could," said Browne. "It really helps us get an idea of where they are, and the number of records coming from areas gives us an idea of the abundance of them too."