New Jersey kids help save endangered turtles

Dr. Wood showed me a large plastic box with a fitted lid that looked much like Tupperware.

"This," he said with a grin, "is our high-tech incubation system,"

Inside, the eggs, about 1-1/2 inches long and placed three inches apart, rested upon four inches of vermiculite, a soft mineral used for insulation and in gardening, During the incubation process, it's kept moist at all times.

After hatching, the young turtles don't eat for several weeks due to a built-in food supply from their mothers.

When the time comes to give them food, the babies are fed a combination of chopped- up minnows, mealworms, and Purina trout chow. (It may sound awful to kids, but to turtles, it's delicious!)

Later the turtles are deliberately kept from hibernation. This makes them hungry and speeds up the growing process.

The hatchlings stay at the institute for nearly a year. This is called headstarting. During this time, their shells grow to about two to three inches long.

Back home they go

When the terrapins are that size when released, they are better able to deal with enemies than they would be if they were released as soon as they have hatched.

Each year, some of the eggs are taken to local elementary schools, where students in upper grades construct incubators for them. The children grow attached to the terrapins that hatch from the eggs and even give them names.

About 80 percent of these hatchlings survive the headstarting process to be released back into the salt marshes by the children.

Before being released, the small terrapins are weighed, measured, and marked with a microchip tag. The tag enables scientists to track the terrapins' movements and their nesting sites. Most nest very close to where their mothers nested.

After a brief introduction by Dr. Wood, the kindergartners marched to the dock. Adults showed them how to carefully release the turtles. There were many "oohs" and "aahs" as the little turtles disappeared into the wetlands.

After seventh-graders from the Jordan Road Elementary School in Somers Point, N.J., released a dozen terrapins, they gave the institute a check for $100. This was money they had raised through the sale of homemade "turtle" candy.

A group of Quinton Elementary School fourth-graders has also become involved in the project, raising 10 hatchlings for release back into the salt marsh.

For these children, it was a muddy march at low tide to the Wetlands Institute dock. There, amid cheers, the children released the headstarters.

Every year approximately 250 headstarters are released in the vicinity of the institute.

What other kids can do

Local children have become quite savvy about the care of terrapins. They are quick to point out that you do not disturb terrapins in any way while they are nesting.

If you should find a terrapin on the road, the best thing to do is pick it up gently and carry it across the road in the direction that it's already headed.

It is especially important not to attempt to take an adult or hatchling terrapin home for a pet, because they survive only in salt marshes. Also, residents of New Jersey who do so would be breaking the law.

The children of Stone Harbor are proud of the work they do in helping the terrapins to live. And, as another summer season approaches, the cycle begins anew.

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