Dozens of baby turtles set free in Quebec river as part of zoo project to protect endangered species

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The weeks-old baby turtle wriggles its legs as it’s picked up from a blue tupperware bin and placed gently into a river south of Montreal. In a flash it’s off, swimming deftly through the murky water before disappearing from view.

The little green-brown creature twice the size of a loonie is one of about 140 endangered baby spiny softshell turtles being released into a river near Lake Champlain, near the U.S. border, as part of a zoo-led project to help save the species.

As it makes its way into the wild, the baby turtle will run a gamut of predators, from racoons to fish, birds and other turtles, which mean that only between one and five out of every hundred will live to adulthood.

But the Granby Zoo, east of Montreal, hopes that by collecting the turtle eggs and hatching them in an incubator, away from hungry predators and flooding, these little ones have a least a bit of a head start.

Chelsey Paquette, a conservation coordinator, says most are released when they’re a few weeks old, although the zoo keeps a few to release at one and two years of age.

“So we just kind of help these individuals get as big as possible before they get out into the real world.”

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Paquette was on hand Saturday at a turtle festival in Pike River, where local families were given the chance to pick up the baby turtles and slide them into the water. The Lake Champlain area is the last place left in Quebec that is home to the spiny softshell turtle, which is named for its leathery shell and spiny projections near its head. The Canadian government estimates that the number of adult females in the area is only in the dozens.

The zoo has released about 2,500 baby turtles since 2009, but hopes to pick up the pace as its focus increasingly shifts from keeping animals in captivity to letting them go.

Patrick Paré, a biologist with the Granby Zoo, says the zoo is hoping to help introduce some 5,000 individuals into the wild by 2030, including more species of turtles, bats and birds, as part of a conservation mission announced earlier this year. Those efforts also include working with zoos in other countries, including a frog release program in Panama, and partnering with local conservation groups to protect the habitat of turtles and other species, he said. Paré says the spiny softshell turtle is an “umbrella species,” meaning that protecting its habitat will also help the survival of other species of turtle, birds, frogs and fish.

“The spiny softshell turtle, in our project, contributes to protecting tens of other animal species,” he said.

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The zoo’s mandate also includes education and working with the public. On Saturday, under sunny skies, a long lineup formed on the riverbank of people who had won a coveted ticket to release a turtle at the Mikinak turtle festival.

Neighbours Carole Ménard and Sabrina Leduc released theirs together. Both live near the water, where they've grown attached to the turtles they see hanging out on the riverbanks. Holding one in their hands only strengthened that connection, they said. “It knows where to go,” Leduc said of the small animal. “It wants to go in the water.”

Paquette said there are signs that the zoo’s spiny softshell turtle release efforts might be working. While numbers are hard to measure, observers have seen some females with markings they don’t recognize, and some nests of smaller eggs, suggesting there might be new females breeding. However, growing their ranks is a slow process, given that turtles don’t reproduce until they’re 12 to 15 years old, she said. Paquette said some of the turtles the zoo is releasing will have trackers attached, which will hopefully give better numbers.

“Normally for turtles, it’s about one per cent of individuals that actually survive until adults,” she said. “So most of them won’t survive, but it’s really that one per cent that we want to go help.”

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