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Gulf Coast Turtle and Tortoise Society News Post for February - March, 2006GCTTS Program at the Houston ArboretumThe next GCTTS meeting will be held at the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center on Sunday, May 21, 2006. The program will be part of the Houston Arboretum's Urban Nature Series and is open to the public. The meeting format will be an informal workshop and include a turtle and tortoise exhibit. We will have members available to answer questions from the public and our members about the proper care of turtles and tortoises. If you would like to bring your animals to display, please let us know by April 15th by calling the hotline (281-443-3383) or dropping us a line at info@gctts.org. We also need volunteers to answer the questions. If you are an experienced keeper, please let us know if you are interested in volunteering as an expert in a particular area of turtle or tortoise care. There will be a short business meeting after the program that GCTTS welcomes anyone to attend. One of the topics will be upcoming GCTTS programs and we'd love to have your input. Bring your ideas for making GCTTS an even better organization! The Houston Arboretum and Nature Center is located at 4501 Woodway, just inside Loop 610, telephone 713-681-8433. GCTTS programs are always free and open to the public. Educational material will be available at this program. If you have never made it to one of our programs, please consider attending this one as a first. We welcome your participation and look forward to meeting you. We would like to have a good selection of native and exotic turtles and tortoises at the program. Outreach RequestsIt doesn't take long to find out how little the general public knows of the issues and husbandry of chelonians. Too many still believe turtles live on lettuce and follow the care advice from their pet store. Why not share some of what you have learned from GCTTS with those in need of this information? GCTTS has an outreach guide available to assist those interested in speaking at a library, nature center, school or scout program. For those looking for something less structured, GCTTS participates in many fairs where help at our booth is needed. Even a beginner can help at the booth events as at least one experienced volunteer is at each function of this sort. Perhaps you would like to help just by exhibiting some of your turtles and tortoises. Please let us know! For our outreach guide with a sample talk to get you started call the hotline and leave your mailing address or e-mail address. The Houston SPCA has asked GCTTS for a speaker for March 16, June 8, and July 13 at 11:00 am for children 8-12 years old. The SPCA is located at 900 Portway Dr, just north of Memorial Park. GCTTS member, Julie Young, will speak at the June 8 event and member, Wendy Mahoney, will speak at the March 16 event. Anyone wishing to assist or exhibit turtles, let us know. We are still in need of a speakers for the July program. GCTTS member, Wendy Mahoney, will be giving a children's program on turtles to the Crosby Library June 15, 10:30. 135 Hare Rd, Crosby, TX Wendy Mahoney, will also be giving a program on turtles for children ages 6 and up at the Pearland Public Library. June 26, 2PM, 3522 Liberty Drive Pearland, TX The Barbara Bush Library has requested a speaker for July 27th, 2006. Audience estimate is 80 children, primarily 6 to 10 years old. GCTTS does not have a volunteer for this event, so let us know if you are interested in presenting this program. The Library is located at 6817 Cypresswood Drive, Spring, TX Man Jailed for Refusing to Tag his Daughter's Turtlesby Bob Smither In Ohio, you better tag your turtles. Apparently they belong to the state and the state wants them tagged. Terry Wilkins has spent three days in jail for refusing to put RFID tags in his 10 year old daughter's pet turtles. His daughter Keiko had some native Ohio turtles as pets, pets she had since she was a toddler. When Terry refused to subject her daughter's pets to being tagged with RFID responder tags as mandated by a year 2000 state wildlife preservation law, he was arrested and sentenced to 90 days in jail by Fairfield County Municipal Court Judge Patrick Harris. All but three of the days were suspended, but Terry did spend three days in jail and his daughter had to give up her pets. Articles Anyone?GCTTS welcomes articles from our Members for our news posts. If you have any information about our favorite animals, please send it to info@gctts.org. Thanks! GCTTS Event CalendarTake a look at the GCTTS Event Calendar, accessible from our home page and located at http://www.gctts.org/WebCalendar/month.php. Our calendar has information about upcoming events involving GCTTS. Click on an event to see the details. Want Your Turtle to be Famous?Charles Densmore has a hobby of doing extreme closeup photography of really small insects. He is working with the Houston Museum of Natural Science to prepare large, educational photographs of the chrysalis stage of the butterfiles in the Cockrell Butterfly Center. His hobby has attracted the attention of the Huntsville Botanical Garden in Alabama (http://www.hsvbg.org/) and they have asked Charles to prepare large photographs of turtles and their eggs. These photographs will be used in the educational exhibits at the Botanical Garden. Charles is looking to photograph eggs, young, and adults of several species. As you can imagine, captive turtles are much easier to photograph than wild ones! The Botanical Garden is most interested in Softshell and Map turtles. He is also interested in amphibians if you have a pond he could visit. Charles has offered to share any pictures that he takes of our member's animals. We could use them on our web site, for example. You can contact Charles at CDENSMORE@houston.rr.com. Let him know what you might have availble for him to photograph. Who knows, your turtle just might end up in an exhibit in Alabama! 2006 Earth Days and FairsWith booth type events like these, there are always several members at the booth at all times. We have a turtle exhibit, and we talk with those stopping by our table and hand out educational material. These fairs are very heavily attended. Some people volunteer for the entire day, some for half a day, and some for a few hours. Even if you can only help for an hour, your help will allow others to get a much needed break. If you exhibit turtles, we would need the turtles at our table for the entire day. Please let us know by calling the hotline or sending an e-mail to info@gctts.org if you plan to help man our booth or exhibit your turtles. These earth days have always been relaxed and fun events. A great way to spend the day outdoors and learn or share information about turtles. GCTTS is in the early stages of planning and lining up volunteers for the following Earth Fairs: Brazos Bend Bend State Park Earth Day Saturday, April 1, 9:00am-5:00pm Brazos Bend State Park is located 45 miles southwest of downtown Houston 21901 F.M. 762 Needville, TX Tentative - US Fish & Wildlife Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge Festival Saturday & Sunday, April 8 & 9 This two day event will not be confirmed until we receive volunteers for it. Times will be added as they become available. The Attwater Prairie Chicken Refuge is located South of I-10 in Eagle Lake, TX. From I-10 at Sealy, take Exit #720 and go South one mile on Hwy 36, then right on FM 3013 for 10 miles. The Woodlands Earth Day Saturday, April 8, 9:00am-2:00pm Volunteers: Judy Meschwitz, Beverly Logan, Marlaina Barr United Space Alliance Friday, April 21 Johnson Space Center Times will be added when received, but it is normally a 4 hour event. Annual Scout Fair Saturday, April 22 Times will be added when received, but it is normally an all day event. Reliant Arena Volunteer: Wendy Mahoney Armand Bayou Nature Center Saturday, April 22 10:00am-4:00pm 8500 Bay Area Blvd, Pasadena, TX Volunteer: Anita Peddicord ETHS Meeting and Programs at the Houston ZooThe East Texas Herpetological Society programs are held each odd numbered month at The Houston Zoo in the Brown Education Center. For meeting information, see: http://www.eths.org/html/meetings.htm Sulcata Homes NeededThe number of sulcatas GCTTS has taken in and adopted has really escalated in the last couple of years, and we have handled a lot of them. We knew there would be a big need for homes when we saw the glut of baby sulcatas starting to be sold at the herp sales. Few people buying them were really aware of what would be involved keeping them when they got larger. Now those sold 3-4 years ago are not suitable for them and we have been accepting them in larger numbers every year. The point has come where anyone that qualified for adoption and was interested in adopting one has adopted one from us. GCTTS has never refused to take an unwanted turtle but we knew 4 years ago no society would be able to take in the number that would be upcoming. We are surprised that the herp societies allow them to be sold at their herp sales, fully knowing, like the iguana problem years before, that many of these animals will die or be unwanted. If you are in a situation where you could foster one (or more) sulcata tortoises until adoptive homes are found, or if you are interested in adopting one of these fascinating tortoises, please let us know! Can You Help the GCTTS Turtle Shuttle or our Fostering Program?GCTTS operates over the entire greater Houston area and as such relies on people to help shuttle and serve as drop-off and pick-up houses for turtles & tortoises. Our rehab volunteers are in need of help making arrangements to get incoming turtles and sending out turtles that have been adopted to their adoptive homes. If you are able to provide temporary housing of incoming and outgoing GCTTS turtles or tortoises until they are picked up by a shuttle volunteer, or are able to help with transport, please let us know. You may email us or call the hotline for an application. We are also looking for someone to manage the "turtle shuttle". This would involve maintaining contact information on the drop-off, pick-up, and shuttle volunteers, and making all turtle shuttling arrangements. Copies of Care Sheets NeededCopies of husbandry handouts and care related information are an ongoing need for the many outreach programs in which GCTTS participates. If you can donate copies, please let Judy Meschwitz at info@gctts.org know the approximate number of copies you can make and whether you can do them one-sided or two-sided. Judy will let you know how to get the care sheets and which ones we need copies of. Join the GCTTS Sulcata Discussion ListFor those of you that have not subscribed, simply send an email to Sulcata-R@gctts.org with a subject line of: Subject: subscribe We do have people signed up and posting. If this list gets more active, it can be very successful. After you sign up to be on the list, any e-mail message sent to Sulcata-L@gctts.org will go out to everyone that has signed up to be on the list. These type of email lists tend to be informal and provide interaction for those with similar interests. After you sign up, or for those of you previously signed up, send an email to the list introducing yourself and your sulcata(s)! We are planning other lists - possibly one for box turtles, other tortoise species, and water turtles. Please let us know what lists you all would like to see GCTTS set-up. Turtle Coffee (yuk!)Iowa Woman Finds Dead Turtle in Coffee The Houston Chronicle AINSWORTH, Iowa (AP) - Marjorie Morris just wanted to pour coffee into a canister. What she found in the package of freeze-dried coffee left her shell-shocked. Morris, 77, of Ainsworth, found a dead baby turtle in the 2-pound package of Folgers coffee last Sunday. "I thought it was a toy at first," said Morris, 77, of Ainsworth. Morris said she had been making coffee from the same package for a month before she made the discovery. "It's a responsibility of the company to check their shipments closer," she said. "It could be much more serious." Morris said she doesn't plan to file a lawsuit against Folgers. She said a customer service representative for the company dismissed the find, explaining that because many Folgers plants are based in New Orleans the turtle might have ended up in the coffee as a result of Hurricane Katrina. Sussane Dussing, a spokeswoman for Procter & Gamble, the company that owns the Folgers brand, said it's too early to say how the turtle ended up in the coffee. Dussing said she wasn't aware of other similar incidents and that Morris' discovery would be investigated. Morris, who has kept the turtle, said she would continue to drink coffee, but that she is now a more mindful consumer. Things could have been worse, she said. "It could've been a snake." Have All of Your Turtles Come Out of Hibernation in Good Health?By GCTTS member, Julie A. Young Here in the Gulf Coast region, the Winter of 2005/06 could be called the nicest Spring we ever had. We did have a few (very few) spates of weather cold enough that plant and pet owners scrambled outdoors to put sheets and boards to use protecting tender living things. But those cold snaps were brief and far between. And that's part of the problem. Most of the winter has been unseasonably warm. That means that turtles left outdoors to hibernate in a natural setting (as native species should be - unless they have a history of illness) have had their natural dormant period disturbed. It wasn't unusual during the winter of 2005/06 to see reptiles out sunning themselves even during the months of December and January - months that they are normally in a state of deep sleep. The ground temperatures have been intermittently warm, then cool, then cold, then downright hot. Water turtles experienced drastic variations in temperature, too, as bodies of water warmed and then cooled, then warmed again. This is particularly noticeable in small areas, such as backyard ponds and man-made turtle habitats. This continual warming and cooling prevents animals from going into the deep dormant period that's needed for healthy hibernation. The warm periods also lure turtles out to walk or swim about, sun themselves, and perhaps seek something to eat. All this is not so good for turtles trying to get in a few months' sleep. How do you know if your turtles have come out of hibernation healthy and ready for the new season? Here are some signs of illness to look for: -Has the animal drug itself to a spot where it can be warmed by the sun, but then doesn't retire to its hidy-hole when the temperature cools down? -Is the turtle interested in food? Sometimes, newly awakened turtles need some enticing to get back into the habit of eating. But any turtle that doesn't show interest in live, wiggly food (worms, goldfish) is probably in trouble. -Is the turtle's breathing labored? -Does the turtle pump his head and legs in and out of the body cavity? This can indicate lungs that are full of fluids, and unable to expand and contract without the aid of the pumping action of the front legs. -Does the turtle have a runny nose? -Does the turtle appear to be gasping for air? -Is the turtle holding its mouth open, as if trying to breath through its mouth? -Are the turtle's eyes swollen, or "stuck" closed? -Is a water turtle swimming with vigor, or merely bobbing around listlessly? -Is a water turtle swimming lopsidedly? This could indicate that one lung is filled with heavy fluids. Problems can be other than respiratory illness, so also check for: -Does the shell show signs of fungus or "pocking"? Are there spots on the skin? This could result from spending many months hibernating in a damp location. You are responsible for your turtles' health. If your animals exhibit any of these symptoms, you must get them skilled veterinary care immediately. They won't "shake it off" or "grow out of it". If they are not helped. they may die. Contact a veterinarian who is experienced with "exotics" - specifically turtles. Harriet the TortoiseMSNBC News Services Tortoise turns 175, but she's not slowing down Possibly oldest living animal on Earth, Harriet still gets out, wallows in the mud CANBERRA, Australia - Harriet the tortoise, quite possibly the oldest living animal on Earth, celebrated her 175th birthday on Tuesday -- with a pink hibiscus flower cake at her retirement home in northern Australia. Australia Zoo, where Harriet has spent the past 17 years, claims the Giant Galapagos Land Tortoise was collected by British scientist Charles Darwin in 1835. But while DNA evidence shows Harriet hatched on one of the Galapagos islands, her DNA also shows she came from an island that Darwin never visited. There is no doubt, however, over the age of Harriet -- who for more than a century was thought to be a male and named Harry -- and she is recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest living chelonian, or reptile with a shell of bony plates. "She would definitely be the oldest living animal on Earth ... I can't see why she shouldn't live till 200," Australian conservationist and television celebrity Steve Irwin, who owns Australia Zoo, told Guinness World Records. As for how Harriet is doing in her senior years, zookeeper Richard Jackson says she's just fine, thank you. "If you didn't know her age, you wouldn't know even know she's 175", Jackson said. "She gets out in the morning. She gets out in the sun...She'll come over for her food every day. When she wants to, she'll wallow in the mud. She gets around fine. She's showing no real signs of slowing down." For a cool video of Harriett's birthday, see: http://edition.cnn.com/EARTH/9711/14/australia.tortoise/ Tropical Tortoise Humidity and Texas WintersBy GCTTS Member, Beverly Logan If more of those "cold fronts" are to come my tropical tortoise species I keep are looking for a ride to "South America or Bust." In their quarters the low humidity levels are taking the toll on their waiting for real spring warmth outside. The associated tropical tortoise keepers I know seem to have all the same dilemmas in wintertime keeping. The one big problem I have is incorrect humidity levels resulting from too much dry indoor heating for warmth. Only 20% humidity is all we even get indoors, from one other opinion. That most daily "relative high humidity" should seep in the cracks from one end to the other of this old house, apparently does nothing for the tropical tortoises' sake. Feeling confident with heating and humidity provided for my tortoises, I hear other keepers of tropical tortoise's developing illnesses with dry heating only. Low humidity levels are what I understand critical to what the tropical tortoise faces in any controlled environment. So this alerts that my indoor husbandry should be watched more closely. The many problems of tropical tortoise keeping species are even few and far, with the still to come chilly and even freezing days or nights. Sometimes the wind chill keeps my somewhat halfway decent outdoor tortoise house enclosure system at a risk. I watch the wired inside/outdoors tortoise's thermometer drop a degree or two in their satisfactory heated domain. Having to add an additional blanket must make it even dryer inside. This time of year I can see on all three of the tortoises appearances that a big dish of water is not the only humidity solution. In my observation they just drink out of the shallow dish when thirsty, and sit in it when need to be hydrated, fast. Soaking tropical tortoises helps several times a week and a must if mine don't soak in their water provided. Misting them is only a temporary solution for about five minutes, as my tortoises still look dry when the mist dries up. Higher humidity levels is definitely an addition strongly needed in a controlled tortoise keeping environment and will aid in my tortoises future years. A humidifier, and barometer reading is in order for my tropical tortoises.... that have to wait and wait, in their inside and outside "slammers," living in Texas "cold fronts," that blast from October to even April. Nation Wide Diamondback Terrapin SurveyDr. Russell Burke To save Diamondback Terrapins we need to know where they now are, were and should be. You can help us, if you have ever seen terrapins in the wild or have experience in salt marshes of the eastern United States and Gulf of Mexico. If you have ever read about local sightings, and can tell us where you read it. Also, whether or not you fill out the survey, please spread news about it far and wide to any one else that might be able to fill it out. The survey can be found at http://www.people.hofstra.edu/terrapin. Please take a few minutes of your time to fill out the on-line survey about the current and past status and range of the diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin). Some Background On Terrapins The diamondback terrapin inhabits brackish and salt marshes and bays throughout its range. In most of their range, terrapins are unlikely to be confused with any other turtle because they are the turtle that lives in the salt marshes. Historically the diamondback terrapin has been reported as far north as Cape Cod, MA and as far south as Corpus Christi, TX. They are most commonly seen basking or crossing roads to nest. Field observations are necessary in order to determine the diamondback terrapins' past and current distribution. Along with distribution we would like to know the status of diamondback terrapins throughout their range, whether the populations are stable, increasing or decreasing. Your help is requested for providing information on diamondback terrapins that you may or may not have seen. The survey is being done by: Dr. Russell Burke Please send any questions or comments to Dr. Burke at Russell.L.Burke@Hofstra.edu Thanks! |