 Media Credit: Courtesy of Chrissie Lanzieri One of the young diamondback terrapins being cared for as part of BC's conservational project to save the threatened species.
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Not many people know that on the fourth floor of Higgins, diamondback terrapins are growing in a laboratory. But then again, not many people know what diamondback terrapins are. Of course, Katie Cava and Chrissie Lanzieri, both A&S '08, can tell you that these little turtles with intricate patterns on their top shells are the essential component of a great conservational project taking place at Boston College.
Both Cava and Lanzieri are Environmental Scholars who participate in laboratory and field work associated with the environmental studies department. In previous years, the girls volunteered to work on the diamondback terrapin conservation project, helping and monitoring the turtles in a laboratory, but this year for the first time they will be working with faculty members on a specific research project designed around their own hypotheses about the terrapins' unique characteristics.
Once considered a delicacy in soup, the diamondback terrapins were hunted almost to extinction at the turn of the 19th century. Despite attempts to bring the population back up to numbers "pre terrapin soup craze," the turtles still face serious threats regarding both loss of habitat due to human intervention, and natural predators.
The black diamondback terrapins lay their eggs and hatch them in the white sand, which makes them easy prey for aerial and land predators when they try to get back to the salty marshes. Crab traps are also a problem, said Cava, because while the turtles can swim, they still need air to breath, and they are frequently caught in the traps and drown.
Perhaps most problematic, the turtles take between seven and 10 years to reach sexual maturity. This leaves much time for something to happen to the them before they have a chance to mate and reproduce. It is for these reasons that great efforts are being taken to conserve and study this threatened species, which can be found along the eastern coast from Cape Cod to Texas.
The diamondback terrapin project at BC, overseen by Eric Strauss, director of the environmental studies program, and biology professor Peter Auger, involves catching the diamondback terrapins soon after they have hatched in Cape Cod and transporting them to the facilities at BC, where they can be cared for better than they would be in the wild.
2008 Woodie Awards
