Once the collected eggs have hatched, the turtles are kept and reared for about a year by Chicago-area partners of the program, which include Cosley Zoo, Brookfield Zoo, and the Shedd Aquarium. Then, they are released back into the wild. By the end of the year, Thompson predicts that the program will have hatched nearly 3,900 Blandings turtles.

Still, threats to Blandings turtles continue outside the laboratory. Female turtles migrate long distances to nest, and too many are hit by cars as they cross roads and highways. Others, especially eggs and hatchlings, are eaten by racoons, skunks, and opossums predators that have adapted easily to human landscapes, expanding their numbers as we do.

About an hours drive north of DuPage, Lake County Forest Preserves ChiwaukeeIllinois Beach Lake Plain is the largest Blandings turtle natural habitat in Illinois. Here, biologist Gary Glowacki and his team are addressing predator-related threats by setting up protective mesh cages around turtle nests and removing raccoons by trapping and euthanizing them. To allow the raccoon population to go unchecked, they would completely decimate some of the other native wildlife, Glowacki says. Our job as land managers is to try to protect that biodiversity the best we can.

In DuPage County, Thompsons captive bred turtles still face these threats as Thompson is all too aware. He once named a grouping after his mom and three sisters: Norma, Janet, Annette, and Karen. One year, [the turtles] were all together, Thompson says. He considered taking a family portrait of the four, but instead called it a day. The next year, I found the turtle named after my mom dead. And Ive lost two of my three sisters since. It really does show how hard it is out there.

But Thompson says the outlook for Blandings turtles is encouraging. In 2014, for instance, DuPage County first captured, in the wild, a turtle raised from a hatchling in the head start program, which Thompson saw as a sign of hope. We hadnt seen that turtle in eight years or so, he says. And not only that, shes an adult female and she was full of eggs.

Now, Thompson often finds recently released juvenile turtles, and even turtles pushing eight to ten years old a maturity threshold that increases the likelihood of survival and reproduction. Twenty-five years into Thompsons Blandings turtle program, he now estimates there are 250 to 400 Blandings of various age ranges in the DuPage County population, compared to the 50 or fewer adult turtles when his work first started. And data now suggests that all age populations of Blandings turtles in Lake Plain are growing.

Even with the numbers climbing, the species is still endangered in Illinois. And the upward trend isnt a sure thing. The reality is, if the head start program was abandoned now, the Blandings turtle population would dwindle to where it was before. At best, the program has helped offset the known loss of wild adult turtles by building up populations of juveniles and sub-adults.

At some point, Thompson will hand off his work to a younger generation of conservationists. Does it worry me? Yeah, he says. What if it isnt embraced and they go a different direction and things dont work well and it declines?

Even so, when Thompson traverses the familiar landscapes of his youth, he is cautiously optimistic about the future. As another season approaches, he is reminded of the quiet, magical moments of the job. In the stillness when hes wading through the marsh, sometimes hell feel a turtle brush against his leg or foot. The wildlife, again, just coming to him.

Read more here:
The Journey to Save a Turtle - Earth Island Journal - Earth Island Journal