Turtles are fascinating creatures.
Or, at least that is the view of Kelsey Marchand with the University of Regina who has spent the last couple of years studying them in the urban environment of Regina.
“A lot of people in Saskatchewan don’t know a lot about turtles in the province,” she said in an Earth Day presentation Saturday in Yorkton at an event hosted by the Yellowhead Flyway Birding Trail Association.
There are two turtle species native to Saskatchewan, the snapping turtle and the painted turtle.
“Snapping turtles are quite large,” said Marchand, noting their shells can be up to 40-centimetres from head-to-tail.
“They hold a special place in my heart. They look so prehistoric.”
The snapping turtle inhabits primarily areas in the southeast around Estevan.
“They’re not terribly widespread, but they are here,” said Marchand.
The second species; the western painted turtle, inhabits are larger range in Saskatchewan, said Marchand.
The painted turtle occurs as far north as the Saskatchewan River and Duck Mountain.
“It’s fairly widespread throughout the province and Canada,” said Marchand, adding they range from northwest Ontario to the BC west coast.
“They’re primarily in slow moving creeks and rivers,” she added.
In part because of the long winters which have painted turtles in a hibernative state under the ice, painted turtles take years to mature.
“They do everything very slowly,” said Marchand. “They age slowly. They mature at a late age.”
Marchand explained it may be as long as 17 years before a painted turtle lays its first clutch of eggs, and they may be 25 before one of their eggs hatch and the young mature to the point they will replace the mother in a population.
While a painted turtle can lay from three-to-100 eggs, many are lost to predation to animals such as fox, raccoons and coyotes.
Other eggs, and the very young, can succumb to conditions being too wet, too dry, too hot, or too cold, said Marchand.
“They lay eggs, and basically hope for the best,” she said.
