Brianna Kudisch reports for NJ.com
STONE HARBOR — Call it serendipity.
That’s the only way to explain how a female terrapin was found crossing a street in Stone Harbor on July 12 and brought back to the same conservation institute that rescued her as an egg, almost 19 years later to the day.
A concerned woman found the turtle on Second Avenue between 102nd and 103rd Street and brought her to The Wetlands Institute, a nonprofit coastal and wetlands conservation organization, which returned the turtle to the marsh. The Institute made a post on its Facebook page Monday to celebrate the turtle’s resiliency.
It’s a mystery how the terrapin got on the road, said Devin Griffiths, a marketing and communications specialist at the Institute.
“When she was found, there was no obvious access to the marsh on either side of the road,” he said. “So we’re not sure why she was there. She was in a really odd place.”
Griffiths said he thinks the unusual location is why the woman brought her in, since most people in the area know what to do if they find a terrapin on the road — gently pick up the turtle and put them in the direction they were headed, since “(the turtles are) very specific about where they want to go.”
However, the turtle was not new to the Institute. She was a head-starter turtle, which are typically hatched from eggs that were recovered from a road-kill female on her way to lay her eggs, Griffiths said.
The conservation organization incubates and hatches the rescued eggs, keeping them for a year. They receive PIT tags, or Passive Integrated Transponder tags, which are placed under the skin to be read. The tags help researchers know the turtle’s age and other information and helped identify this recent female turtle as a former head-starter.
“And after a year, when they grow a bit and get stronger, we release them back into the marsh,” he said. “We give them a head start into their journey into the marsh.”
Have you ever saved an injured or endangered animal and taken it to a rescue center like the Wetlands Institute? Please share your story in the comment box. We’d love to hear it.
–Editor
