The Urban Pantheist

If you visit a Mass Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary at certain times of year, you are likely to encounter these small exclosures.


If you are lucky, you might encounter a small group of naturalists carefully digging out, marking, and relocating turtle eggs. They mark the eggs to make sure they are relocated in precisely the same orientation they were in previously.


If you are remarkably fortunate, you will encounter a diamondback terrapin in the act of laying her eggs in a hole she dug in the sand. This species is listed as Threatened in Massachusetts, in part because of their very particular habitat needs. They are neither pond nor sea turtles, rather they require the brackish water of our relatively scarce salt marshes.


A hundred years ago this species was nearly wiped out due to being collected as a food animal. Every nest counts toward bringing it back to a stable population.

The most massive reptile in New England is the common snapping turtle, Chelydra serpentina*. I thought these ladies (engaged in tandem egg-laying, a behavior I'd never seen before) were rather petite, at about a 12 inch shell length and probably weighing under 10 pounds. Big ones achieve an 18 inch shell length, and weigh up to 35 pounds. Probably there are monstrous individuals twice that size, in overfed captive collections, and the primordial past.

Snappers are entirely aquatic, swimming well but often spending hours inactive waiting for food to drift by. They'll eat any animal small enough to fit in their mouths, including, reportedly (put probably very rarely) baby ducks. Plants make up about 40% of their food--despite their reputations they are less predatory than their tiny cousins the spotted turtles. I've been looking for verifiable stories of humans being bitten by snappers in the water, and have come up dry.

They'll only come up on to land to move to better water--or if female, to lay eggs. That's when most of us encounter them, and when most humans get bit. Can you blame them, though? Their shell is skimpy, leaving lots of naked underbelly, and on land they are on the vital mission of creating the next generation. I'd bite you too.



* "Snake-like turtle" because their necks are long and their faces are bitey.

Duck duck duck duck hey you gonna finish that?

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Soon after we arrived someone asked "have you seen the alligator yet?" Wait, what? Suffice it to say we spent a lot of time looking in the water after that. Then I saw one. Then I saw one every day I was there. Turns out there are a number of small alligators in the lake, they are probably fed by hotel guests, and then they are removed when they get over 4 feet long.


I'd kind of like it if they left them in there to get huge, but that might be kind of dangerous, especially with all the kids running around the place.


The alligators' companions are large soft-shelled turtles--I suspect these are rescue animals given safe haven in the lake.

Orlando Science Center is not too different from the Boston Museum of Science where I got my start in animal care. They have a lot more alligators though.

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Last weekend I went to the Cape to visit the seashore and hang out with friends. This is when I first got there and couldn't find anyone but I liked the random green things growing on the beach.
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Okay youngsters (are there any young people left on LiveJournal?) "hook up" means getting a behind-the-scenes tour at a zoo, clean out your mind.


Right away I got to see my old friend Orville, a turkey vulture who used to try to rip strips of flesh off of me despite me not being dead yet. He did not do that this day, maybe he's mellowing with age (he's got to be in his 50s now) maybe he's relaxed now that he has a partner. That white duck is one of these baby ducks! all grown up.

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The cross orbweavers are starting to appear, still kinda small.

What's the name of that movie where the museum exhibits come to life at night? Is it Jurassic Park? Here's a feathery little t-rex--the museum's approximation of a seven year old animal.

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The bunny's new indoor lodging, in the main barn.




Over in the brooder barn a northern shoveler chick seems annoyed by the attention.


But Swifty the African spurred tortoise came right over when he saw me!


And Jenny the Sardinian dwarf donkey was very friendly to me.
She's one of the oldest animals at the zoo (around 30).