Bronx River turtles persist, despite pollution
Hundreds of years ago, the Bronx River was rife with aquatic reptiles like common snapping turtles, musk turtles and painted turtles.
But only a few species have managed to survive centuries of heavy development and pollution in the Bronx, one of the U.S.’ densest urban areas. And just like the city’s human population, many of its current turtle inhabitants are immigrants from elsewhere.
Researchers monitoring turtle populations in New York’s Bronx River found common snapping turtles (Chelydra serpentina) that had likely lived to be decades old. A large number of nonnative red-eared sliders (Trachemys scripta elegans), a species that originally hails from across the Southwestern U.S., occupied the river, but many native species were nowhere to be found.
“It’s pretty cool that the Bronx Park has been preserved since major development started,” said Valorie Titus, an assistant professor in wildlife biology at Keystone College in Pennsylvania and one of the co-authors of a study published recently in The Journal of Wildlife Diseases. Raymond Ditmars, a curator at the Bronx Zoo, which lies in the Bronx Park, had recorded historical information on the turtles in the river. Titus wanted to update these surveys.
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This Week In Turtles…
The ‘TortArk’. Rescue Day 15th June 1pm – 4.30 at Fontley Road. Titchfield. Fareham. PO15 6QX.
Your chance to see the work of Titchfield’s Tortoise Rescue Centre and meet some of the ‘residents’.
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Photo from Julie Larsen Maher/WCS.
