In Bethlehem, New Zealand, the red-eared slider is a blacklisted species
This week, a scientist, a bio-security officer and two renowned conservationists stand on a dusty, sun baked track in a suburban Tauranga backwater.
They’re earnestly discussing a potential environmental calamity. And Goldilocks.
That’s Goldilocks of 19th century fairytale fame who doesn’t like her porridge too hot, nor too cold, but just right.
But this is more to do with the Goldilocks principal, or Goldilocks zone, as it pertains to the breeding habits of the red-eared slider in Carmichael Reserve rather than common-or-garden variety porridge.
“The sex development of turtle juveniles is temperature dependent,” explains scientist Dr Nick Ling of the University of Waikato. And there’s the connection – not too hot, not too cold. Just right.
It was the talk of turtles that piqued the biologist’s interest and lured him across the Kaimai Range to the Carmichael wetlands at the foot of Bellevue. “One of our staff has a property at Cook’s Beach and they have had a local population of turtles lay two years in a row,” he says.
Now the scientist, the bio-security officer and the two renowned conservationists are about to excavate a red-earned slider nest right here in our own backyard.
“For those of us interested in the New Zealand environment, having any exotic animal in the wild that has potential to cause harm is certainly of concern,” adds Dr Ling.
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Photo from Bruce Barnard.
