Photo by Tammy Dorcas
Later that day, I remember slowly driving a small jon boat
up what I later learned was Fiddler Creek, when I turned a
corner in the creek and stopped. There they were—at least 40
turtles in the water, heads popping up periodically to breathe
and have a look around. I had never imagined there could
be so many turtles in such a small saltmarsh creek. When I
first got out of the boat, I quickly sunk into mud up to my
waist! More experienced folks explained what to do (I follow
instructions well), and we began dragging long seines through
the creeks to capture the terrapins. When we finally pulled
the first haul up onto a mud bank, it was pandemonium! We
had over 45 terrapins in one seine haul! It was very exciting
and hectic trying to make sure turtles did not escape back
into the water—while simultaneously trying to release
carefully the stingray we had accidentally captured—but we
eventually got them all into plastic bins and properly labeled
so that we could take them back to the house and process
them. Processing involves giving each terrapin an individual
code, recording any injuries, and taking measurements of
the animals before they can be released at their exact spot of
capture within a day or so.
This study, the most well-known study of this species
anywhere in the world, started in 1983 when Whit and his
children used a small seine to capture 23 terrapins in the
creek across the Kiawah River from the Inlet Cove dock.
Biologists do not usually plan long-term, decades-long
studies. We begin with a single short-term study, maybe one
week or a month, and then just decide to do it again and then
don’t stop “doing it again” each year. Whit kept it going, year
after year, and I was fortunate enough to start working on
the project 12 years after its start in 1995. Over the next few
years, I became more involved in the project, and in 2002, as
a professor at Davidson College, management of the project
was transitioned to me. The Kiawah Island terrapin study
continues as the longest study of terrapins in the world and
sampling conducted in May 2016 constitutes the 34th year
of the study. The benefits of such studies are extraordinarily
important when studying long-lived animals like turtles,
and we know more about terrapin ecology and conservation
as a result the Kiawah study than any other terrapin study
in the world.
Terrapins are unique animals. They are the only turtle
found exclusively in coastal marshes (in southern Florida they
live in mangrove forests). Terrapins range from Cape Cod,
MA to Corpus Christi, TX and the females get considerably
larger than the males. The females typically lay 5–10 eggs in
exposed, sandy areas.
For the first four years of their life, terrapin babies are
almost never seen. They remain in hiding in the marsh,
never taking a risk on open water where any number of
predators can eat them. Once they reach four or five years
old, they start venturing into the many tidal creeks associated
with the Kiawah River where they eventually reach sexual
maturity and can begin to reproduce themselves. At Kiawah
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