Box turtle remnant

The other day Connie and I were taking a hike on our property, and we went down in to a bit of a hollow where we had planted white bamboo. Been quite a while since we had been in that area. We found a box turtle shell laying in that hollow, so I decided to bring it up and place it on a stump near the garage. Maybe the lizards will use it when the weather gets warmer and they get more active for a shelter.

We have found maybe a half dozen shells over the years. Hopefully they died from just old age and not from some predator or fire ants. We see them every now and again, particularly when our temporary pond fills up after a heavy rain. They tend to burrow under the pine needles, so they are more secretive than you would think. But even one sitting out among the leaves and pine needles isn't as easily spotted as you might hope while just walking along in the woods.

Interesting find. It has been a while since I have seen any box turtles (intact or not) on my land.

Unfortunately, they do not really die from old age in the conventional sense. Some factor in the environment is the root cause. Predator. Parasite. Microbial pathogen. Some kind of weather or resource shift that becomes too much for endurance. External poor luck, basically.

I would think that fire ants are a real problem for box turtles. Their shells when closed up will not be ant proof, so that would pretty much doom them when they go into their typical defense posture, I would think.

A few years ago we noticed a female box turtle laying eggs right underneath our bedroom window. It was early and I had a doctor's appointment to run off to, so I couldn't monitor the entire process. I did take video of some of it, though. Anyway, when I got back from my appointment, she was done laying her eggs and eventually trundled off into the woods. Couldn't have been more than 10 minutes later when a mom raccoon and four youngsters made a beeline for the nest and started digging it up. Really just a miracle that I happened to be looking out the window at that moment I yanked open the window and scared them off, but not before 2 of the four eggs got damaged. Mom knew what she was doing with a turtle nest.

We tried incubating all four of them, hoping they weren't terminally damaged, but unfortunately only one hatched out. After a few days, we took the baby box turtle down near our stream on the north end of the property and let it go in a fair moist spot. Hopefully it is still alive.

I actually contacted FFWCC about it, really to ask advice about how to properly incubate the eggs, since I had nearly zero experience with turtle eggs. BIG mistake! They gave me a BIG ration of crap about it being a protected species and implied I could be in big trouble over it. I just gave them back a ration of crap asking if the correct procedure in the future would be to just let the raccoons eat the eggs if this ever happens again. I told them to come and get the damned eggs, and do what the hell they wanted to with them. They eventually just shut up about it, not that I think for even an instant they would admit they were on the wrong side of logic. I took pics of the one successful hatchling and the three eggs that didn't make it and sent it to them, but they never bothered to even respond.

But in any event, lesson learned for me. Don't EVER have contact with them again about ANYTHING.

Coincidentally enough, Connie and I were out cleaning up our bike/hiking/walking path today and found an adult box turtle crossing the path right in front of us. This one had white patches on the head, which we see on some or them around here. Didn't have my camera with me, and just did not feel like walking all the way back to the house to get it. So, sorry, no pics.

If we get a heavy rain in March, perhaps we will see them in the temporary pond that forms. That seems to bring them out of the woods to frolic in the water.

The fire ants are a menace like you said. I had to help one of my (large) tortoises recover for nearly a year because he received a bunch of internal stings when he consumed food that the ants had infiltrated. Lots of damaged alimentary canal to regenerate, but intake during that time would be nothing aside from water. Imagine drinking a slurry of corrosive with little bits of glass for extra fun. The box turtles are far more vulnerable than that tortoise due a difference in skin and scale thickness, eyes and nares aside. And fire ants are drawn to protein/meat.

Boxies are quick to take advantage of marshy areas and vernal pools, so that makes sense. You might have some (or a lot of) Gulf Coast box turtle blood where you are in addition to FL box turtle blood. The whiter heads are associated with some populations of Gulf Coast boxies. I have mostly FL box turtle blood in my area.

Oh, and about the agency thing, they are useful for some things and not so much for others. It also depends on what agent you happen to talk to on a particular day. You will receive all sorts of paradoxical responses to the same questions. They would receive better public support in general if the members of the public behaving reasonably would receive reasonable answers. You did a good deed.