Big step for tiny turtles as they get released in Lake Champlain

BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) - After spending the winter at the ECHO Leahy Center for Lake Champlain, a handful of spiny softshell turtles made their way into the wild on Wednesday.

ECHO staffers and Vermont Fish and Wildlife released 16 spiny softshell turtles into the lake.

It’s an annual event that’s been happening for the past 16 years, as the two organizations work to give these tiny threatened turtles a fighting chance out in the wild.

It was an exciting afternoon at an otherwise desolate North Hero beach as turtle lovers of all ages gathered to see the little guys off.

“We’ve seen them in the zoo or at ECHO but we’ve never seen them in real-life in nature,” said Chuck Hughes of Schroon Lake.

Among the spectators were Chuck Hughes and Sally Friedman, who made the trek from the Adirondacks for the chance to release a spiny softshell turtle into the wild.

“I love turtles, and the spiny ones are so uncommon and so unusual, and so we wanted to watch them,” Friedman said.

“What she said,” Hughes agreed.

The tiny turtles are unusual and are threatened in Lake Champlain. That’s why the ECHO Leahy Center and the Vermont Fish and Wildlife have stepped in.

“We do this because this is a threatened population, which means they could start to face the pressures that could lead to an endangered species,” said Steve Smith of the ECHO Leahy Center.

Animal experts estimate there are around 300 adult spiny softshell turtles in Lake Champlain.

“If you’re out paddling somewhere, you’re going to see painteds, you’re going to see map turtles. You’re not going to see softshells,” Smith said. “One, because there’s so few, but two, they’re long gone before you see them.”

That’s because they’re so shy, which is part of the problem keeping populations up as they hesitate to come to shore to lay eggs.

“Lake Champlain is the only place in Vermont where they live, and so they need undeveloped shoreline with a minimal disturbance by people and there’s not a lot of that left. So there’s only a few places that we know of where they nest in numbers,” said Toni Mickula of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Mickula says predators like raccoons and skunks can eat their eggs, too, which is why some areas on the lake have designated nesting sites.

It’s also why Fish and Wildlife takes some of the little turtles to spend the winter at ECHO, so they can grow a bit before being released. It makes them less vulnerable to predators and gives them a head start.

And their release makes for a great, feel-good start to the day.

“This is a big part of ECHO,” Smith said. “We’re all about science education and we’re all about conservation education. And this is it, this is the real deal so when families come out here, it feels great.”

I asked Mickula how many turtles she’d like to see in the lake and she said many, many more.

Of course, populations are hard to track because there’s no way to keep tabs on turtles once they’re released.

The ECHO Leahy Center does still have four of these turtles in an exhibit. They’ll be released later this summer as the cycle continues.

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