Western Pond Turtles Loosed on Unsuspecting Populace

Western pond turtle, about to pounce. (Photo: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo)

If you are eaten by a Western pond turtle on the way home today, you will likely have the Woodland Park Zoo to blame. (The zoo, your insect-like size, and the fact that you commute home through a pond. If, on the other hand, you try to eat them, you may be a large-mouth bass or bullfrog.)

Western pond turtles (Emys marmorata) are an endangered species, so as part of a “head start” reintroduction program, biologists from Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Woodland Park Zoo are releasing 19 turtles into the vast wilderness that is Pierce County. 57 more will find themselves taking in the ponds of the Kitsap Peninsula.

It’s all happening right about now, this very morning. But it began ten months ago, when the wee turtles hatched in the wild, and were gathered up to get a “head start” in the safer confines of Woodland Park Zoo. Now that they weigh in at about 2 ounces, they should be big enough to flee from hungry bullfrogs and large-mouth bass. And if not, hey, circle of life. Those bass didn’t ask to be born with large mouths to feed.

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Says the zoo:

Western pond turtles were once common from Baja California to Puget Sound, including the Columbia River Gorge. However, loss of habitat, disease and predation by non-native species such as bullfrogs decimated their numbers. They were on the verge of extinction in Washington in 1990, with only about 150 turtles left in the wild. Habitat degradation and disease were, and still are, problems, but the biggest threat to fragile baby turtles is the bullfrog. The state listed western pond turtles as endangered in 1993. 

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The bullfrog is a non-native–like most of you, dear readers, so don’t get too high and mighty. The good news is that, thanks to tracking devices, the hatch-and-release program seems to deal with the bullfrog issue just fine. It’s estimated that 95 percent of the turtles released back into the Columbia River Gorge have survived, along with most of the turtles relocated into the ponds of Pierce and Mason counties.

If they aren’t snarfed up at an early age, they can live up to 50 years, and will grow in size to between one and two pounds. From the 150 left in 1990, the program has grown Washington’s Western pond turtle population to 1,400.