Wood Turtle Conservation

The wood turtle, Glyptemys insculpta, is a freshwater turtle native to northeastern North America. Its population is declining due to habitat loss, illegal collection, and other factors. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists wood turtles as endangered, and New York considers them to be a Species of Special Concern. SUNY Oneonta is home to a large collection of preserved wood turtle shells from the 1950s-1970s, which were collected by Dr. John New, the college’s first Biology Department chair. The Oneonta area is also home to a small population of living wood turtles. Graduate and undergraduate students have studied both the preserved specimens and living turtles to help understand this species’ decline and learn more about how we can protect it.

Top Left: A wood turtle fitted with a radiotransmitter as part of Alexandra Vlk’s master’s thesis work on wood turtle habitat selection. Top Right: A wood turtle Alexandra and her collaborators at SUNY Cobleskill hatched in the lab and headstarted (raised in the lab for a year) before releasing it at the site where its mother laid it as an egg. Photo credit: Hannah Harby. Bottom Left: A wood turtle plastron (bottom portion of the shell) from SUNY Oneonta’s collection of preserved wood turtle specimens. Bottom Right: The plastron of a contemporary wood turtle Alexandra Vlk encountered during her research. The concave plastron reveals this individual to be male, whereas the preserved specimen came from a female.