Eastern Box Turtle

I have to do a bit of research, but I pulled this little guy/girl from the road today. He/she is very friendly and active. I know my friend has a suspected male. I think this is a female. Would it be neat to breed them and release the offspring in the local state park? I'm not sure what my state laws are, but I'm off to find out!

about the breeding and releasing the offspring.....it is never a good idea to release captive bred animals into the wild, they are more prone to sickness and disease. this goes for any type of animal

If one of the turtles has a concaved plastron (bottom shell after the hinge) then it is almost 100% male. If it is completely flat on the bottom, it is female. Also, Eastern Box turtles are illegal to catch in the wild. I live in NJ and I did a lot of research before purchasing my boxes. Best thing to do is to just let it go.

Macheteslaststep said:

If one of the turtles has a concaved plastron (bottom shell after the hinge) then it is almost 100% male. If it is completely flat on the bottom, it is female. Also, Eastern Box turtles are illegal to catch in the wild. I live in NJ and I did a lot of research before purchasing my boxes. Best thing to do is to just let it go.

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It is not illegal in PA to catch or own Easterns. The limit however is two. It also is permitted to breed them in PA if you do a release program with a local state park. I did my research when I found her.

Regardless, I released her a few weeks ago in a local state park.

You should have released her near where you originally found her. Don't you know they have a strong homing instinct and will go to great lengths to find their home territory again when relocated?

This thread is 3 months old.

Please do not lecture me.

Heh heh....the fella may confused with homing pigeons.

You're perfectly within your right to keep her and also breed her through captive release programs available in our state.

Good luck with her.

critical bill said:

Heh heh....the fella may confused with homing pigeons.

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Hardly, this "fella" is absolutely correct. I assume most people here are not actually educated in herpetology (rather renegade know-it-all herpetoculutrists), but Eastern Box Turtles do exhibit an incredible home range fidelity and releasing it anywhere but where she was found (obviously, not on the road) is inherently destructive. Also, for anyone reading this, despite what state laws say on collection, it is not a good idea to take any turtle from the wild. Unfortunately, legislators have no idea about the population status of numerous species and choose to adhere to past legislation as opposed to actually reviewing the literature and making amendments. Just because you are not breaking the law does not make it right to collect an Eastern Box Turtle from the wild. A mere 3-4% annual loss of adult turtles to collection, road mortality, etc. is enough to push a population to extinction over time. An adult female is so vital to the population that few people can comprehend it. If you must collect, collect early stage turtles as their success is inherently low (this is made up by adult annual survivorship of greater than 0.98). Adult females will produce eggs every year from when they are sexually mature (a feat in and of itself, to make it to sexual maturity) until the day they die. An adult female may produce between 500-800 eggs in her life time and the end goal is to have only one of these eggs hatch and survive to become sexually recruited into the population (to keep the population stable). In small populations (a few hundred) collection of one adult female each year WILL push the population to extinction inevitably (it may take many generations to fall below the population threshold but it will happen). In fact, in places like PA where populations have declined so greatly due to over collection, the population threshold has already been lowered to below sustainability so enjoy these animals in nature while you can... but please leave them there.

Stephanie very responsibly took this little guy off the road; I don't know what the #1 killer of turtles is but I would suspect being squished by cars is way up there.
She then immediately did research, and then released him. Surely being released back to the same dangerous location was not an option.

I am sure the next turtle she rescues will be released away from the road but in the vicintiy. Learning is a process, but the important thing here is that the turtle did not get squished, which would have rendered moot any neighborhood arguments.

Obviously the effort here deserves an accolade, those who bring info to help with subsequent rescues ought to be thanked also for their part in helping turtles in the wild survive, but those coming here to lecture and disapprove when it is clear that rescue and research were timely and done to help, are going to hurt the turtle cause more than help it.

Since mine was the most recent post, I'll assume lucille's was directed at me. I am not lecturing the original poster since it's clear her intentions were good. I was merely providing information to whomever regarding the importance of releasing an animal within the range of where it was found. Yes, if a turtle is on the road then it should be removed immediately, but in the vicinity. We may think it's a good idea to take the animal far, far away from the road but if it's outside of the animal's home range then this may very well be to the animal's detriment. The turtle will attempt to relocate back to it's home range so by taking it far away from the road, all that has been accomplished is providing a suite of obstacles between where the turtle was taken and where it's home range is. The turtle has a better chance of surviving if it's taken off the road (in the direction it was heading) and released within 500m of where it was found. Who knows how many roads relocated turtles will have to cross in their effort to get back to their home range...