37 engaged rigorous academics learning VALUES exploration individualized teaching Schedule a tour today! • 18 mos – 8th grade 910.791.8221 | www.fsow.org 1/12 page 2x2.28 This hatchling terrapin, just days-old, may live 50 years or more in its saltmarsh habitat. later allowed for a small population recovery, as terrapin meat was generally regarded as unaffordable, thereby decreasing its demand. A state and federal listing as a “species of special concern,” as well as a spot on the North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan, has enabled terrapins to continue to partially recover their stocks. However, terrapin populations are in trouble today due to a combination of factors in and out of their salt marsh habitat: Adult female terrapins are killed in traffic on roads within nesting territories, and untold numbers of all-age terrapins drown each year in fishing gill nets and blue crab traps. Shoreline bulkheads are another terrapin challenge because these vertical walls, placed at the interface of land and water, can force terrapins to crowd-nest between bulkheads, where the natural shoreline provides an accessible interface of land and water. Egg-eating raccoons and foxes are quick to find these nest congregations, to the detriment of many, if not all eggs involved. Dire as the terrapin’s plight sounds, this is no time for despair. Right now, turtle conservationists are working with fishery managers to help the fishing industry develop and use terrapin excluder devices that will prevent adult terrapins from enter-ing crab pots, while not compromising crab catch. Public education is another key strategy toward terrapin conservation success. Terrapins need everyone’s help, including coastal residents and visitors who use recreational crab pots when terrapins are active. It’s as easy as making sure crab pots are pulled from the water when not actively used. Terrapins have survived the test of time, living and thriving for thousands of generations in an ever-shifting coastal zone where ocean and land meet. As a species, the resilient terrapin has instinctively persevered through millennia-scale changes in its environment because terrapins can adapt to slow change in their world. But what they and other species have trouble with, is rapid change in their world; something we and the terrapin share in common. In the constantly changing world in which we live, a thoughtful disposition and instinctive desire for knowledge provides us with the capacity to contemplate our coastal affairs, and take positive actions to assure our own thriving future. We can learn something from little Malaclemys about resilience, perseverance and fortitude, character attributes that will serve us well in the future — as has been proven by this time-tested coastal turtle, which otherwise goes by its Algonquian name, torope, the word for little marsh turtle, or terrapin. DAVID LEE www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM
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