MINNEAPOLIS — In an undisclosed location south of the Twin Cities, Minnesota Zoo conservation biologist Tricia Markle is hunting for wood turtles.

Even with an antenna tracking the turtle’s movement, she’s having a hard time finding this rare and evasive turtle.

“It’s not always perfect,” says Markle. “This one has been a little tricky. Got to be super close here somewhere.”

After 20 minutes, she finds it. A 2-year-old that Markle helped raise the year prior, equipped with a radio transmitter glued to its shell.

“He looks really good. Hopefully we will be able to track him for a number of years to come,” said Markle.

It’s positive news for a threatened species in real trouble.

The wood turtle is one of nine freshwater turtles found in Minnesota — the state’s most terrestrial species.

Unlike the populous painted and snapping turtles, wood turtle numbers have dropped off significantly over the decades, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.

Flooding, nest predation and climate change are to blame, but legal trapping and illegal poaching are also culpable, according to the DNR.

“We have to be really secretive. People really do take them, and they can sell for pretty good money on the black-market pet trade, especially overseas. Addressing those larger threats is going to take time. So if we can kind of head start this population, bring back eggs and raise those young turtles while they are really vulnerable, we can help sustain those populations, at least in the short term,” said Markle.

She refers to turtles as the “janitors of the wetlands.” They play an integral role in eating dead plants and animals, improving water quality and creating habitat for other animals.

The efforts to restore wood turtle populations are funded by the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, which comes from scratch-off lottery tickets.

Her team’s work starts at night in June, amid mosquito-laden woods where hundreds of hours are patiently spent tracking nesting wood turtles in search for their eggs. 

Each fertile female will lay between eight and 15 eggs, and Markle’s team will collect as many as they can.

The eggs are brought to the Minnesota Zoo where they can hatch, free of predators.

Half are immediately released back to the nest. The other half enter the zoo’s turtle nursey — complete with turtle artwork from Markle’s human, home nursery. 

“All the turtles are color coded. They are divided by their nesting parents. Whoever has the same mother has the same color, and it’s just nail polish that we put on them,” she said.

The turtles will eat, play, fight and eat some more over the next year until the head start is over, and life in the wild begins.

In July, the toddler turtles from the year prior are brought back to the area their eggs were laid. 

For this trip, Markle is releasing eight turtles — five with transmitters for follow-up data.

“Their biggest threat in the next few years, those small mammalian predators like raccoons and foxes and skunks and otters,” said Markle.

It’s a bittersweet moment, as just one of these turtles will likely make it to adulthood. 

Those odds hindered — but now helped — by humans.

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