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by Gordon Douglas
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| baby bog turtle |
Turtles have been on earth since the beginning of the age of dinosaurs nearly 250 million years ago. Their protective shells, long lives, and ability to live on land or water all contribute to their long success. Now these marvelous and endearing creatures are in trouble all over the world, including here in the Harlem and Hudson valleys. The Hudson Valley with 12 turtle species is one of world's five richest river drainages for turtle species.
Bog turtles are listed as "threatened" federally and as "endangered" in New York State. These categories allow some funding and legal protection for the tiny bog turtle. Bog turtles, scarcely over three inches long, live in two areas, Appalachia and in northeastern states from Massachusetts to Maryland. On a map this distribution looks healthy, but in actuality bog turtles survive mostly in small isolated areas. Pennsylvania is their north-eastern stronghold, but New York is also important and the Harlem and Hudson Valleys are major population centers in the State. They are a "responsibility species" for us in the Great Swamp watershed where we have several populations.
The bog turtle requires a very special habitat in which to live and reproduce. Bog turtles do not mate until they are teenagers and then they lay only 1 to 4 eggs, once a year, at best. With luck they will live another 20 years, but they need suitable habitat that is relatively stable over at least several decades. Since the turtles are cold blooded, they depend on open habitat where sunlight can warm them and incubate their eggs which they lay on vegetated hummocks. They also need soft wet substrate in which to burrow for escaping predators and heat, low vegetation that supports the slugs and other invertebrates on which they feed, and sites where they can over-winter below the freeze-line.
An ideal bog turtle habitat is a mucky fen fed by nutrient-poor ground water or springs that flow from limestone or marble bedrock. These low nutrient conditions are not ideal for plant growth so only certain species can thrive and even they grow slowly. Sedges, grass of Parnassus (not really a grass), shrubby cinquefoil, and ladies tresses orchids characterize these wet and nutrient poor habitats. Trees and other tall plants, however, don't do well in nutrient poor sites, so fens stay sunny for years. The muck is a dark organic-rich substrate that retains water and provides a soft moist material for burrowing bog turtles. It develops where ground water saturates the soil through much of the year leading to the depletion of oxygen for the soil microbes which slows them and reduces their decomposition of plant litter. The partially decomposed plant material holds water like a sponge giving "muck" soil its characteristics.
Through time, succession will naturally change the habitat as tall plants and eventually trees over shadow the sunny nesting spots, reducing reproduction success and finally eliminating it. Strangely, the individual turtle is adaptable to changing conditions, but when reproductive success declines significantly the population is doomed.
Bog turtle habitat is heavily influenced by beaver activity. It is hypothesized that historically, as open fens become forested swamps, beavers would move in, cut trees, dam the streams, and create ponds which killed the flooded trees and other vegetation. After using all the woody vegetation, the beaver abandoned the site and moved to another location to repeat the process. Bog turtles can use beaver ponds, but what they need most of all is the mucky wetlands and open fens that return after the beavers have left and the dams have decayed releasing the ponds which have retained new sediment. Bog turtles live and reproduce in these open fens until new trees eventually get established and return the area to forest. By then, the bog turtles have moved on to habitat that more recent beaver activity has created. Thus, over the years the bog turtles are thought to have followed the beavers in wetland pond and forest succession. But this would occur over a long time frame and human land use activity has now reduced the ability of turtles to move from one area to another. We have reduced the size of most habitat areas, surrounded them with inhospitable habitat, and degraded the dispersal corridors along streams.
A major problem that we impose on the fens is fertilization. Our activities add nutrients to these habitats in such quantities that we greatly increase the rate of successional change. The nitrates and phosphates that reach the fens from lawn fertilizers, septic systems, agricultural runoff, and other stormwater inputs, convert the nutrient-poor fens with short vegetation into nutrient-enriched gardens with diverse tall vegetation like Joe pye-weed and New York ironweed, followed by shrubs and trees. These changes reduce the chance a bog turtle population will survive on the site. To compound the problem, the introduced purple loosestrife and phragmites or reed-grass are extremely efficient at taking advantage of these nutrient conditions and they quickly reduce the quality of the bog turtle habitat. We must preserve and manage bog turtle habitat if they are to survive. With so much human encroachment, the "extinction prone" bog turtle cannot live and reproduce without our help in protecting, and often managing, their habitat. Methods currently being promoted include eliminating stormwater runoff into the fen habitats and reducing the tall vegetation cover in otherwise suitable habitat. FrOGS is a partner with Environmental Defense, US Department of Agriculture, US Fish and Wildlife Service, and New York State DEC in an experiment evaluating the use of controlled grazing to improve bog turtle habitat quality.
The bog turtle is rare in New York State, but has been found in nine different locations in The Great Swamp. The turtle has an official State designation of "endangered", and has a Federal designation of "threatened". The eleven fen community sites found in The Great Swamp, including three rare fens, are prime habitat for the bog turtle. Read more about the bog turtle on the New York State DEC website.
| Turtle Facts | |
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| Taken from The Year of the Turtle, by David Carroll, St. Martin's Griffin, New York, 1996. This is a great read: includes a year's worth of journal entries and many pen and ink drawings and water color paintings! | |
| The following Amphibians and Reptiles are rare and found in the Great Swamp: |
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| The following rare butterflies are found in the Great Swamp: |
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by Judy Kelly-Moberg
This article is based on a presentation given by Matt Merchant, Senior Wildlife Biologist for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation at the FrOGS Annual Meeting on November 22, 2009.
There used to be 3 distinct bear ranges in New York State (the Adirondack, the Catskill and the Allegany) from the late 1800s up to 1995. Ranges are areas where breeding females and young are consistently found. Male black bears, especially young males, often roam well outside these areas. The home range for female black bears is about 10 square miles and 100 square miles for males. It was clear that the ranges of females and family groups were expanding as farmland reverted to forest.
In 2000 the DEC established a Black Bear Management Team to develop a comprehensive statewide management plan. In 2007 the Bear Ranges in New York were redefined into two, the Northern Adirondack Range and a Southern Range, which merged the Allegany and Catskill Ranges, and added the Taconic Highlands. It's estimated that there are presently over 2,500 bears in the Southem Range. The east of Hudson, Taconic section, which includes Dutchess and Putnam County, is also seeing bears that have migrated across state lines from Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Matt said, "There are a lot of bears in your area!" The audience was surprised to learn that some of the 14 bears trapped in Dutchess County were released in State owned lands in Putnam. Matt described the method used to catch bears and the data that's collected by the DEC. A five-gallon pail is cabled to a tree. A 7-inch hole in the top is encircled with a noose. Inside the can is a spring loaded bait arm with a doughnut for bait. The snares are checked daily. The bears are then tranquilized, weighed, tag tattooed with colored cattle tags and a small tooth behind the canines is taken. The growth rings in the tooth will tell the bears' age much like tree rings. Radio collars are placed on some of the bears to monitor movement, survival, and reproductivity. Sometimes planes are used to track these bears since the signal (beep) can only be picked up by antenna within 1-2 miles of the collared bear. Unfortunately GPS monitoring collars cost about $4,000 dollars each.
We learned a lot about the lives and behavior of black bears. They are omnivores and about 80% of their diet is herbaceous. They are also opportunistic and will eat carron and small mammals. In the sping they wilI take fawns as well as eating early plants like skunk cabbage. In summer they feed on berries, greens, and colonial insects. Apples, grapes, cherries, acorns, and beechnuts are part of the fall diet. Bears have been tracked great distances from one food source to another. They have a short digestive tracks so most of what they eat goes right through them.
Black Bears have one of the keenest senses of smell of all animals, about 100% greater than humans. Their curved claws enable them to scale trees and make them good climbers compared to other bear species. Matt passed around a claw so we could see how hooked it was. They also use their claws and teeth to leave signs on trees and telephone poles for other bear. Bears are good swimmers and can cross both lakes and rivers.
Female bIack bears (sows) breed sometime in June or July every other year. The litter size is usually 2-3 cubs that are born in the den sometime in January or February. The cubs weigh only about 1 pound at birth and about 4-5 pounds when they leave the den with their mother sometime in March. They are weaned in August and den up the next winter with their mother. By the time they are two years old they are on their own. Young males (boars) will wander in search of new territory and are those most often sighted. Matt mentioned that a 20-year old sow tracked in New York was still having cubs. Her teeth wre so ground down that she had begun into houses for food.
Matt told the audience that black bears are not true hibernators but go into a light sleep and are easily aroused. They may den up in a hollow tree, hole in the bank, rock dens, and even in the open under brush piles. Males weigh around 300 pounds and females 160 pounds. They will loose 1/3 of their body weight over the winter. Most of the recorded bear fatalities are due to hunting or collisions with cars.
Although the information on the life of black bears was very interesting, the most important message of the presentation was educating us about how to get along with the increasing bear populaion in our area. In other words, the real possibility of finding a 300-pound black bear in you backyard! Matt told us that traditional bear population management was just counting the number of animals but now it involves adaptive input management. Positive public input includes those who enjoy seeing "wild" black bears in their area and also those who still actively hunt bear in many sections of the state. The negative side of increasing bear populations is fear of bear attack and damage to commercial agriculture and residential property. Matt indicated that black bear attacks are extremely rare and should not be a real concern. If you are a hiker and worried about a bear encounter, you can make noise (whistle, sing, talk, carry a smaIl air horn) or bring a dg along to scare off any bear in the area. Matt said that if you get too close to a bear it would let you know by its behavior. It may chomp its teeth, drool, make distressed noises, stamp its foot and make bluff charges. Back away slowly. Bears are naturally afraid of people and will avoid contact.
Most negative contact between bears and homeowners can be avoided. They will be attracted to uncovered garbage, dumpsters, pet food left outside, food left in cars, and bird feeders that are in use all year. Feeding the birds in the winter when the bear are in their dens is not a problem. Once bears have homed-in on a source of easy food provided by humans it's hard to break them of the habit. They become "nuisance bears" and can become destructive, breaking into cars and houses in search of the food source. To prevent this from happening we must "cut off the food source"! Use bear proof receptacles whiIe camping, put latches on garbage cans and bins, keep garbage inside as long as possible, and put an ammonia soaked rag in plastic bags. An electric fence will stop them from entering the property. Nuisance bears are trapped, marked with a paint gun, and hazed with pepr spray and rubber buckshot when released to make sure they move away. Despite the hazing, some bears continue their bad behavior and eventually have to be put down. Commercial agriculturists can legally kill bears if they are destroying their beehives or corn crops.
The Black Bear Management team has bee meeting with local stakeholders (recreationists, environmentalists, homeowers, landowners, agriculturalists, and local officials) in areas with increasing bear populations to talk about their concerns. Hunting bears was not seen as an important interest in our area although opening a bear hunting season for areas east of the Hudson to adjust the bear population has been proposed. Matt seems to feel that better solution is to increase public information about how to co-exist with bears. His "Bear Management Team" hopes to use informative billboards, talks, posters, brochures, and DVDs in libraries and schools, to lessen the negative impact of the growing bear population.
Public input is is needed to determine the current and future bear distribution in this area and the appropriate bear management response from the DEC. Bear data can be reported to the Wildlife Helpline (845)-256-3098 at the DEC headquaers in New Paltz.
Beaver lodges can often be spotted at the edges of ponded areas. Beaver are both famous and infamous for building their dams and lodges. Their dams have created ponds where there were running streams, and altered our landscape.
The pond provides protection for the lodge the beaver needs to house his young and to hide from predators. A beaver lodge is built by piling up a mound of sticks and mud. The Beaver then gnaws out a chamber inside and packs mud around the outside. If there is fresh mud, it is probably an active lodge. Once inside with his stored food the beaver seldom needs to leave all winter.
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| beaver damage to tree trunks | beaver lodge once located near Rt. 164 in Patterson | beaver prints |
by Judy Kelly-Moberg
The Eastern Coyote is larger and more robust then its western relative. This has often led to mistaking them for wolves, feral dogs or even "coy-dogs" thinking they interbred with domestic dogs. Coyotes run with their tail down and a gait that is noticeably different then a domestic dog. I've seen color variations from grey and tan to reddish gold.
They tend to operate as a pack with individual animals marking their own territory with scent posts and scat. However, they may range over a very large area when food is scarce. Coyotes feed on rodents and larger mammals (even deer) that may be compromised due to injury, sickness, or age. The high-pitched yips and howls of the pack can often be heard at dusk in Putnam and the rocky hillsides in the county are excellent den sites. Like the ravens and vultures, the coyotes patrol the Metro-North tracks near my house looking for animal carcasses. Their scat is often full of animal hair and bone fragments.
Coyote tracks are dog-like but the two central toes and toenails are closer together and point forward, giving them a longer and more compact look. They also seem to have a focused direction to their trail while a dog's trail will wander. As the land in Putnam becomes more developed the coyote seems to have adapted to living near humans and this has led to some concerns about our coexistence. Although I've heard of no attacks on humans, the once people shy coyote is very opportunistic and has snatched small pets from their owner's yards.
by Judy Kelley-Moberg
The fox ia a lone hunter, eating fruits in season as well as birds, small mammals, amphibians and insects. They are members of the canine family and can yip and bark like a dog but their pupils dilate vertically like a cat's eye. When hunting a fox will often leap straight up in the air to pounce on its prey. Fox scent mark strategic trees or spots along a trail with urine. Red fox urine has a distinct skunk-like odor. The color and content of fox scat varies with the season and the food source. The scat can contain fruit (berries and seeds) or be full of small mammal hair and bone fragments. Large bone fragments and deer hair are usually found in coyote scat. Don't get too close to animal scat as it can contain parasites!
In the winter the walking pattern of a fox is a single straight-line of small oval holes punched in the snow. When walking the back foot directly registers or lands in the track of the front foot leaving a single track. As the fox speeds up the two tracks begin to separate and grow further apart, leaving a clear larger front and smaller back foot print. Red fox are more common and their tracks are larger than the grey fox but more delicate than a small coyote. "The track of the front foot of a red fox is 2 and 1/8 inches to 2 and 7/8 inches long including the nails. All the canidae leave nail prints but the grey fox can partially retract his nails and even climb trees." (Tracking and the Art of Seeing by Paul Rezendes, Camden House Publishing, 1992). Felines direct register too, but a cat's nails are retracted and their tracks very rounded. The red fox track shows a pretty distinct bar across the rear of the heel pad on the front foot.
The fox is the most often seen reminder of the elusive creatures of the "wild" forest unlike deer, skunks, raccoons, opossum, squirrels, rabbits and even coyote that have learned to live in and around our homes. A flash of russet red seen out of the corner of your eye or the brief glimpse of a red fox trotting purposely through the forest or pausing briefly to check for the unfamiliar is something special to share and remember. Seeing a fox flattened on the highway is a painful reminder of how we're replacing their world with ours.
There seem to be more coyote sightings nowadays and I wonder how the increased coyote population and the competition for food and shelter in a declining ever more fragmented habitat will affect the fox population? Another powerful reason to try and protect more large, interconnected, undeveloped sections of forest and wetlands.
Rabbits are active in this area all year. If you follow the tracks of a rabbit for a few feet along the wet meadow, you may discover a group of twigs cut off from the ground about 1 foot high. The twigs of small shrubs at the edge of a wet meadow make an excellent meal for rabbits.
White-tailed deer are found everywhere in our woods. Deer find the grasses of the wet meadow and the young shrubs of the shrub swamp an excellent place to browse in winter. The wooded sections of the SWAMP are also places to hide during the day.
A welcome sign of the Spring season to come is the sound of the Spring peepers. These small frogs return to the wetlands in late Winter or early Spring to breed. Northern Spring Peepers are about 3/4 - 1 1/2 inches in size and are brown or olive in color. They can jump up to 28 inches and arfe good climbers. Females are typically larger than males, but it is the males that make the distinctive call - females are voiceless. The "peep" can be heard up to 1/2 mile. Eggs are laid in vegetation submerged in water, and tadpoles emerge in 1-2 weeks. The adult frogs leave the wetlands for a woodland habitat. Tadpoles are herbivorous, while adults eat insects, mites, spiders, snails, and just about anything similarly sized that they can find in the soil or leaf cover. Peepers are hard to find because they are well camouflaged, but there sound is hard to miss.
Woodpeckers abound in the woodhttp://www.pattersonny.org/Codes.phped sections of the Swamp in both winter and summer. All six of our local woodpeckers can be found in abundance. Not only do they find great meals from the insects hidden in the bark of the many trees in the wooded sections of the Swamp, but the red maples and silver maples and the dead trees make the best nest sites for these cavity nesters. The largest of our local woodpeckers, the Pileated Woodpecker, finds both excellent nest sites and the solitude this bird needs to breed successfully.