Meet Indiana's Turtle Expert: DNR Herpetologist Nate Engbrecht

In the final episode of season two of the Lake Doctor Podcast, Indiana DNR Herpetologist Nate Engbrecht takes a fascinating deep dive into the world of turtles. We discuss everything from common painted and snapping turtles to rare species like Blanding’s, spotted, and even an unexpected alligator snapping turtle documented in Kosciusko County.

Nate shares insights on critical spring breeding grounds, how turtles can survive winter under ice, the challenges of habitat loss and nest predation, and why most turtles may not make great pets. The conversation also covers proper handling if you find a turtle on the road, reporting rare sightings to help conservation efforts, and the important role forested wetlands and natural shorelines play in supporting turtle populations.

Packed with practical advice, fun childhood stories, and turtle shell show-and-tell, this episode highlights why protecting turtles and their wetland habitats is essential for healthier lakes and vibrant local ecosystems.

Report a rare turtle sighting by emailing herpsurveys@dnr.in.gov 

Learn more about the Lilly Center's work at https://lakes.grace.edu/.

Have a question we could answer on the podcast? Send an email to lakes@grace.edu or submit a comment below.

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Transcript

Season Finale And Turtle Tease

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this episode of the Lake Doctor Podcast. I'm Susie Light, and with me is Dr.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Nate Bosch. And Susie, this is our last episode of season two of the Lake Doctor Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Thank you, listeners and viewers, for watching these and listening. And we encourage you if you've got any questions or comments while you're viewing this episode, let us know. We'll respond to your comments. Um, we're really excited about this one.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

We're we have we're gonna learn about why you shouldn't mess around with snapping turtles.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Well, yeah, that we'll talk about that. But also, what do you do if you come upon a turtle in a roadway? And we'll also learn a little bit about is it good to have turtles as pets or not? And I'll confess my childhood and maybe not such a great decision that I made. But we're inviting Nate Engbrecht to the podcast. He is a herpetologist with the Division of Fish and Wildlife with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

That's the DNR. And you know, we've had other DNR um people, characters, on our episodes, and we've really learned a lot about this wonderful world that we have. Um this episode is gonna focus on turtles. Yep. And boy, you want to watch it on YouTube because we've got some good show and tell, don't we?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

We do.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

So, like I said, make sure if you've got any questions or comments, pop them in there. We will get back with you. We are watching you watch us. That's a good thing. Um, so if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you share it with others and subscribe. Subscribe.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Okay. Thanks for tuning in. The Doctor is in.

Alligator Snapping Turtle Surprise

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Did I say it correctly? You got it, you nailed it. Okay, so Nate is with DNR, and you're joining us today to talk about one of your favorite topics. Ta-da.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Turtles. Turtles. Yeah, great topic.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

We are so excited that you have joined us for the Lake Doctor Podcast. Um tell us, you have an interesting story about a snapping alligator turtle.

SPEAKER_02 2:36

Yeah, it's an alligator snapping turtle. Um, this was, man, this must have been three or four years ago. I get a call from a colleague up in northeast Indiana, north central Indiana, in this area here, saying that some local guy had caught this turtle that he thought was an alligator snapping turtle. And that's a rare, very rare species in Indiana, known basically from the southwest tip of the state, way down there near the Ohio River. And I thought, oh, it, you know, it's probably just a common snapping turtle. That's typically what it ends up being. And my colleague sent me photos, and I was like, Well, son of a gun, that's an alligator snapper. I couldn't believe it was an actual alligator snapping turtle. So I can't remember if it was that day or the next day. My coworker and I, we drove all the way up from Bloomington because I wanted to see this. They had it, they had caught it fishing and they had it in a kiddie pool in their garage. And I was like, I gotta lay eyes on this, I gotta get some photos and stuff. So we drove whatever it was, three, three and a half hours up to see this alligator snapping turtle, and it was the real deal, and it it had an amazing the shell was amazing looking. Uh we'll look at a common alligator or a common snapping turtle shell here too, but it was very spiky, looked like it had been carved out of wood, and it was alive. And so we took a bunch of photos. Uh, we got uh actually a little piece of the little snip of the tail to get some genetic tissue that might be informative on perhaps where it came from. Yeah. And then uh we actually went back and released it, and it was very close. It was in the county here. It's actually close to Winona Lake in a little stream.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

So we have no indication that somebody unnaturally brought it here. You think it could have come up naturally that far?

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Yeah, I mean that's pretty far. I mean, we don't actually have any current known populations of alligator snappers in Indiana, it's mostly been older historic records. So I think it probably honestly was a released pet. I was a little on the fence. I I was not sure if we should even release it, but they are state endangered. And so when the the anglers who caught it, they really wanted to see it go back out. So we went ahead and released it back in the wild. So as of three or four years ago, we had at least one alligator snapping turtle lurking in the waters of Casyasco County here. Wow. But uh yeah, it was a it was a very interesting find and uh and a very rare thing for me to see.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

How big will those get and how old do they get?

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Well, so they can get very large. I mean, we're looking, I mean, we're talking, you know, two feet, you know, or more across from front front to back of the shell for a for a large adult alligator snapper. This one was about maybe 10 or 12 inches, so it was actually the size of one of our common snappers we have around here. So it wasn't particularly large. It did have some leeches on it, actually. So it had been in the wild, I think, for at least a little while. But uh it's a very unusual find, but being so far outside of that southern, deep southern Indiana range, probably was released. We may never know. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

So,

What A DNR Herpetologist Does

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Nate, you're with the DNR and you're a herpetologist.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

What do you do? We've had other DNR folks here, but this is something interesting that you specialize in.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yeah, I I have to agree, they are very interesting animals. So I work with, as a herpetologist, I work with amphibians and reptiles. That's the study of herpetology. We sometimes call them herps informally. That's kind of like slang in my field. So if I use the word herpes, we're talking about an amphibian or reptile. So I oversee the herpetology program for the DNR. We're based out of Bloomington. We have a field office down there with several biologists, but I actually cover the whole state jurisdictionally. I actually cover the whole state. So we do work in different parts of Indiana, typically more in the southern part where we're based out of. And we kind of do all things amphibians and reptiles. A lot of the work we do involves doing field surveys or research projects. We're moving into some cool conservation and recovery stuff here with some rare frogs in southern Indiana. So um, we have our hands in a lot of different stuff. We do different things with public outreach, like here today, um, consultation for construction projects if there's a rare amphibian or reptile in the area. So it's just is kind of overseeing that that program for the state. And uh it's a dream, honestly, it's a dream job for me. I've been wanting to do this kind of stuff. This is why I got into the environmental field was herpetology and my passion for these animals. So it's great to be in a position to be able to work full-time with them.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

So we have an unusual alligator snapping turtle documented in Casasco County.

SPEAKER_02 6:21

We did. I hesitate to say it because I don't think there's an actual population here, but it was physically here. I can testify to that.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

So uh Nate, Dr. Nate, we hear rumors about other kinds of things in our community.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yes. So uh some examples, um Churubusco, the famous turtle there, that's defies logic with how large it was. The beast of Busco, is that yes, yes. Um more recently, um a shark in Lake Tippecanoe, which I think is is totally a myth. And um maybe one that intrigues me the most though is uh Lake Sturgeon in Lake Wawase. So our largest natural lake here in Indiana is Lake Wawase. Um and back in 2018, uh someone uh sighted a lake sturgeon up next to their boat early in the season. Now we don't have confirmation of that, uh a positive identification for sure, but uh they claimed that they saw a sturgeon come up and kind of breach right next to their little John boat on the way to one of the marinas on Wawase. And um, this was an uh a fisher, and uh so he was familiar with different types of fish, and he said it was most certainly a sturgeon. Now, our most recent positive identification with a photograph of a lake sturgeon in Lake Wawase was back from the 1990s. Um so we do know that they have lived in there, uh, but with some of the changes to that lake over time, I'm not sure that sturgeon could survive there anymore. But uh it's an interesting story.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

So amphibians and reptiles in our state, specifically in our county, um what are other unique uh reptiles that live here?

SPEAKER_02 8:15

In this region. Yeah, here kind of in the gr the lakes region of north central and northeast Indiana, um, the a couple that come to my mind actually are turtles. We've got Blandings turtles, which blandings turtles, a state endangered species. Spotted turtles are another one. They're quite rare, but those two would be in this region that's kind of more of northern Indiana type of species. We get some other turtles in the southern part of the state, but those would be ones that are more at this point kind of endemic to the northern

Pet Turtles And The 30-Day Rule

SPEAKER_02 8:40

part of the state.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Okay, I gotta tell a story about a spotted turtle from my childhood, okay? So growing up up in Michigan, I I loved critters out in nature. And so um one time I was down by a pond close by my house, found a spotted turtle there. They're they're not endangered in Michigan, um, but they still weren't quite as common as like a painted turtle. And so I thought it was quite interesting, and so I I commandeered the little kitty pool from our family and put it in the backyard on a little bit of a slant so that it was half water, half sort of land, and uh kept that turtle, and there was enough things that were falling in the pool and stuff that the turtle was eating into the fall. And I forgot about my pet turtle, which I'm embarrassed to say at this point, but I had forgotten until one time in the winter I was sledding down the hill behind our home, and my sled crashed into the side of this kitty pool, and I thought, oh no, my turtle, because by this point the water in my pool had frozen, and so I quickly chipped through the ice, found my turtles. It was still liquid water under the ice, found my turtle down there, all sort of closed in, and I was mortified that I had killed my pet turtle. I brought it in our house into an aquarium. I still don't know why my parents let me bring it this dead turtle into our home, but I did. I don't know if it was sort of a memorial to this turtle or what, but I had brought it in um in this aquarium. I came home from school a few days later, and the turtle uh was crawling around in this aquarium like no problem at all. And so I was, of course, ecstatic of the resurrection of my turtle. Um, and uh and then uh in the the next spring, then I was able to release the turtle back to that pond. But in that story, I'm sure there's some things that the youngster, uh Nate, did well or didn't do well with that that pet. So, Nate, explain a little bit to us. One, so intriguing how this turtle survived under solid ice, and two, some ideas maybe of of is it good to take a per turtle as a pet or not?

SPEAKER_02 11:05

Yeah, that's a great question. Um So I I think turtles are just likable animals for most people, even if you're not into reptiles, most people I think can appreciate turtles. I've been surprised at how much of a response we've gotten on our Facebook post about turtles. But um they're great in the wild. I I would contend that they don't make great pets um for a few different reasons. Um they can be pretty messy actually when you've got them in a tank. Um they're they're they're fun and cute when they're small, but they can be kind of messy and probably just more maintenance than most people realize if you have them in an aquatic tank and needing filters and water changes and uh especially as they get older. They'll also outgrow their tank. You know, some of them, but not so much spotted turtles, but something like a red-eared slider that's a bit more common in the pet trade, those can grow pretty fast and they can quickly become more than someone can really handle or wants to manage as a pet. And some of them live really long. I mean, they can out they can outlive their landowners uh or or their pet owners and they'll they'll uh you know, decades in the order of decades. And so it's a commitment. If you want to take on a turtle, you you can there's there's certain species you can legally collect in Indiana with a valid hunting or fishing license. There's different ways to do it, but I think it oftentimes is more of a commitment than people realize. And some of them are protected, some of them are endangered. Um box turtles are not endangered, but they're all protected. And so um there's just several considerations if you kind of want to take the dive into keeping a turtle as a pet. But um, but they're they're fascinating animals and and like we were talking about earlier, the babies are adorable. I mean, they really are, they're super cute, and and it's totally understandable why someone would want to take them home.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

And from what I understand in Indiana, if you take on that responsibility of a turtle in your home, there's a certain threshold that if you keep it so long, you have to then hold on to it for the remainder of its life, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Yeah, so the regulations that we currently have for amphibians and reptiles in Indiana say that if you collect one from the wild, whether it's a turtle or a salamander, and you keep it in captivity, after 30 days, you cannot release it back into the wild. You're actually not allowed to do that. There's you know, these animals can start to become tame, you know, in captivity. Uh and so yeah, that's kind of how our cer our our regulations are set up right now. And so um, you know, if you want to take it in for a week, you know, show the kids or something like that, that's a little different. But once you've had it past that one month threshold, it's yours. You either have to keep it or or find someone else, rehome it for someone else to care for it.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

And if someone were to take it into their home just for a few days um and they wanted to release it again, what would you recommend? Release it right where they found it or Yeah, so that's the other that's the other thing.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

It has to be within 30 days, it has to go back to the point of capture where you got it. We don't want people moving them around. Um you could actually accidentally end up spreading diseases if that turtle's sick. You could actually s you know artificially spread it and then it cannot have been uh held with any other animal. So you wouldn't want to put it in with your Russian tortoise, which could have some your uh you know, reptile disease from Russia, you know. So there's some a lot of considerations there. So you want to keep it in its own little tank by itself, a clean tank, and it would yeah, go back to the point of capture.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

So not only did I not do a good thing by uh not taking good care of this turtle, but um if I were to have grown up here in Indiana, I kept it too long to be able to then release it. And uh and so that that is quite a commitment then if someone wants to take a turtle as a pet.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Because they live a long time. So is the danger that if you kept it for more than 30 days and then released it, it might starve because it was dependent on a person?

SPEAKER_02 14:31

Well, yeah, I mean if it it may get used to being around, you know. Yeah, in the wild, a large mammal that approaches a turtle is usually not a good thing for the turtle. But in captivity, that's you know, is getting fed. You know, it's there's a there's it may be recognizing this large creature as something that would feed it, maybe it becomes tame. It's not maybe foraging as as well as it used to. And so there's some behavioral kind of considerations there when it goes, you kind of want the idea is that you would if you collect it from the wild and you just want to keep it short term, you just kind of put it back where you got it, put it back pretty quickly, and it kind of is still a wild animal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

So while we're talking about things that we did wrong when we were kids, when I was a kid, it seemed like the thing to do when you caught a turtle was with nail polish, paint a name on a turtle.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Oh, you didn't actually do that. I didn't do that. I didn't do that. She would never do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

I won't tell you who did.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

But that's dangerous to the turtle because Well, we don't really know, depending on what you paint it with, you know, what kind of chemicals are in that, would that, you know, potentially absorb into the shell, or could that somehow affect the turtle? Um, you know, as a turtle shell grows, I can actually grab a shell here, this box turtle shell. As a turtle shell grows, you it it kind of each section of the shell is sort of growing out. And if you put some substance on the shell that kind of like is tight or you know fixed, you know, that could that affect the growth develop and development of the shell. Sometimes we see these wild photos of turtles that have, or or yeah, turtles or other animals that have swam into like a oh the little the six-pack plastic six-pack ring things, and it gets around it and the turtle grows, but the but that part of the shell that's surrounded by a plastic ring or something, it gets constricted. It's almost like a fence in a tree, except in this case, the shell kind of grows around that. So any kind of thing you're putting on the shell, we have to think about you know how that might actually affect the turtle and how it might affect even the growth of the shell and the health of the turtle.

Shell Myths And Aging Turtles

SPEAKER_00 16:24

So while you have that shell close to you, is there a way to tell the age of a turtle by the shell?

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Sort of. Um that's a great question. So you can if you looked at it up close, you could actually see each each section of this turtle shell has these little growth rings, actually. There's these little, it looks like a tree ring almost. And so every I shouldn't say every year, uh the growth rings represent age, but they don't always represent a year. Like what happens with our our our turtles in this region is that you have this season of activity. They're coming out right now. It's April, they're starting to feed, they're growing. It's a period of growth during the warm season. And then when they hunker down in the winter, either digging underground for a box turtle or under the ice at the bottom of a lake for a lot of our aquatic turtles, everything's shutting down, everything's slowing down, there's not much growth growing on. So what you end up having is that each ridge represents more or less a growing season. And around here, that's about a year, but you could have a situation where maybe the turtle gets sick, you know, for the middle of the summer and then it kind of everything slows down or then it starts growing again, or there maybe there's a severe drought that affects, you know, the the growth ring. So every little edge or ring doesn't exactly represent represent a year, but it does approximate it. So you could approximate the age. I found some box turtles a week or two ago down in southern Indiana. We found four of them on one day, actually. And I just picked it up and I just counted, yep, this one's got five, you know, so probably about five years old. One was about 15. So it's an estimate. It is more difficult on a you know, on some turtles, like the snapping turtle, this common snapping turtle shell here, it just doesn't have growth rings. It's pretty smooth. And when they get older, those rings tend to become a little more obscure and it's hard to see them. There's no way I could age this thing. I mean, there's some really faint ones, but box turtles do have those nice little kind of growth rings.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

So the box turtle shell that you have here with you, and I'd encourage we have uh both listeners and viewers to our podcast. I'd encourage people to flip over maybe for uh YouTube for this one so they can view some of these turtle shells in front of us. That was a box turtle shell you held up first. Um what age would you say that box turtle was, either by what you can see for the rings or just by the size of it?

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Well, I'm gonna count the rings real quick here. It's gonna be tough because it's it's kind of shellacked, but so you that was shellaced after the turtle died.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

I did.

SPEAKER_02 18:33

After the turtle died. I put like a shellac resin on this thing to try to preserve it and give it a coating. I mean, just a really cursory look at this, probably 15 to 20 years old for this guy. Wow. And if this one doesn't have the bottom of the shell on, I actually have it back in my office, but it broke off. But you know, box turtles have a hinged shell where they're like right across this kind of midsection here, there's a back section of the shell and the front section, and they can actually open and close it, which is super cool. You think about how hard these shells are. They have a a little bit of, it's not like a hinge, like a door hinge, but it's a it's a more of uh a fleshy kind of membrane that's right between the back section. I wish I'd brought the bottom of this thing where they can actually completely box themselves in uh to protect from predators as opposed to something like our local painted turtles, where everything's pretty much fixed, everything's pretty much solid. This shell is not bending, there's no fold, there's no crease, but that's a kind of a distinct feature of our box turtles.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

This is the name box turtle. The box themselves in.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

That's exactly right. Yeah, that's the whole thing. And they're they're more domed and boxy shaped too. The shells are. This is an eastern box turtle. We have an ornate box turtle in northwest Indiana that's more of a prairie species. Yeah, the spine, this is so this is this thing can actually be helpful too. This is what the top of a of a turtle shell looks like. I should say this is this is the bone. This is the so on a on a turtle shell, you've got the bony structure, yeah, and on the inside of it, your vertebrae are fused into the shell. And then on the outside, there's this just really thin layer, it's almost like a thumbnail type of material.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

Like a cuticle, maybe.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, kind of a cuticle on the outside that has all the pattern. And when the when the turtle dies, like if I had not shellacked this, those things would probably start flaking off, and then you end up with this. This is it's almost a helmet-like you know structure there, but that the vertebrae, the backbone is fused into this shell. This is absolutely a part of the turtle's body. It's not coming out like a crab might come out of a shell. They're locked in.

Surviving Winter Under The Ice

SPEAKER_00 20:19

So the other thing is turtles are reptiles. Correct. So unlike mammals, they hibernate during the winter.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Well, some mammals hibernate, but yeah. All of our reptiles are all by reptiles.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

That's all good. We're here to talk about turtles. So back to that story that I was telling before about the turtle behind my house. So it it obviously from the story, it survived. It didn't, which is remarkable. And this is this is pretty uh common for our turtles, our aquatic turtles in this area to actually go down in the mud or under the ice. And how can they survive for several months?

SPEAKER_02 21:00

It yeah, it's hard to imagine, yeah, how they could survive. I mean, yeah, pretty much our aquatic turtles are going down to the bottoms of lakes and streams. Um, and of course, around here, usually the lakes get frozen for at least part of the winter. Yeah. Um, and so they hunker down the whole, the whole physiology, the whole system slows down. Okay. The amount of heartbeats per minute, everything gets really slow. I know with uh snappers, I I've heard or read that uh they can actually take in some oxygen through, it's actually near the base of the tail, it's called the cloaca, it's kind of the all-purpose reproduction waste kind of exit hole there, but they can take in some oxygen apparently through that. But everything just slows down, and it almost is hard to believe. You know, even down in Bloomington where I live, we've got a little backyard pond about the size of this table. And uh we had a bullfrog that showed up and last last summer or fall, and we had a really hard cold snap at the end of January. Okay, and that frog was down there, presumably in the bottom of the pond. And this is all normal stuff that happens with you know turtles and frogs like every year, and we sort of know it from a textbook standpoint. But to look out when there's a foot of snow on the ground. Yeah. That thing's frozen. I'm thinking he's down there, I guess. You know, I hope he survives. And sure enough, he came back out in the spring. And it's the same thing with our turtles. And there's even reports, sometimes you'll hear about people talking about actually seeing turtles swimming under the ice, maybe getting a little active. I don't know if that's because you know it had warmed up or it refroze and the turtle kind of went back dormant again. But actually seeing them swim under the ice, and of course you just think, how can they breathe? But they somehow they pull through during winter, and slowing the whole system down is a huge part of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yeah, because we know from a lot of our lake research that down near the bottom of lakes in wetlands would be the same thing. There's very little oxygen because there's bacteria that are using up oxygen down near the bottom, decomposing all of that old plant matter and muck and such. So um, but they can pull a little bit of oxygen just enough to keep those really low metabolic processes continuing to go even over the winter. That's remarkable. I know frogs in our area, like the wood frog and uh spring peepers, those can the wood frog at least can freeze solid, no heartbeat, brain flatlined, but yet can thaw out in the spring and pretty remarkable popping around again.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

There's antifreeze type of elements in there that prevents the critical things from freezing. But yeah, it's pretty remarkable how these animals, you know, can survive, but they they do it every year. And and then spring comes or even a warm winter day, and you see them out basking on a log or something. It's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

So you mentioned research that your office is doing. What kind of research are you doing that that can tell us about lakes or people's health?

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Hmm. That's a good question. Well, we do a lot of work um with amphibians, and so and we do reptile stuff too, but we have in the past done a lot of work with frogs, and we actually have a collaborative project uh with Purdue going on with these hellbender salamanders, and there's a lot of connections to water quality. Now, this these hellbenders are more of an appalachian species, so we don't have them up here. Right. We have them further down on the very southern edge of the state.

SPEAKER_00 23:55

And hellbender is a salamander?

SPEAKER_02 23:56

It's a very large salamander, yep. It's the largest, it's a fully aquatic salamander.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

So it's kind of like our mud puppies, it is more in the northern part of the city.

SPEAKER_02 24:03

It kind of is, and that's the other one I was thinking about. Yeah, that would be more local to hear. Right. But we think about water quality with these amphibians that live, you know, their well, really even part of their lives uh in the water. But some of these like a hellbender or mud puppy, they're fully aquatic like a fish, and they're in the water all the time. And so we start to think about, you know, water quality, how it affects them. They have this very soft, permeable skin where they can take in toxins probably more easily than something like a reptile. And so um, yeah, the mud puppy would be the local example of an of a fully aquatic salamander that that is certainly in our local lakes and streams. I think we actually had uh some reports out of Winona Lake. So uh they're around. And so um we're always trying to track, they're hard to study. Some of these fully aquatic salamanders are difficult to study, especially mud puppies, because they can be in the deeper parts of lakes. Um that we have on mud puppies in Indiana is actually from anglers that catch them. You know, but a lot of times they'll catch them in the in the winter when they're in the shallows, you know. Um and so um and can be quite a surprise. Absolutely. They're a very bizarre-looking animal. Oh, totally. Is this this that just came up from the lake?

SPEAKER_00 25:03

I imagine that's why they got the name Hellbender in southern Indiana.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Yeah, they they are they're they're I have to say, but hellbenders are somewhat grotesque looking, even though they're awesome and and kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

So if somebody wanted to actually see a mud puppy, I think do you have some of these? Yeah, we do.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

We do have Mabel the Mud Puppy here at the Lily Center for Lakes and Streams, right in one of our uh lobby aquarium.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

And do you have any turtles here?

SPEAKER_01 25:27

We do. We have uh a few turtles here at the Lily Center, I believe. We have some painters and uh I think a map turtle as well.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

So, Nate, it's not a good idea for somebody to personally have a pet turtle because of the longevity of turtles and the care needed. Why is it okay for the Lily Center to have a turtle?

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Yeah, I mean it's it's not that it's wrong to have a turtle, it's just that there's a lot of considerations and it can be a challenge, and there's logistical challenges that come with it. For someone, uh so folks, you here uh at the Lily Center, I mean you guys are equipped, you have tanks, you have filters, you have full-time staff that can kind of take care of these things, and uh you have the ability probably to upgrade to a larger tank if you have to. And it's great for education, you know.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

And yeah, that's why we have that's why we have the turtles and the mud puppy frogs and uh garter snake, and we have a scientific purposes license through the Department of Natural Resources, so we had to apply for that, and we're permitted to have certain organisms here on campus and then keep those in captivity. But we're under similar rules that when we have those in captivity, we can't then just take those turtles and go put them in one of our local natural lakes, for example. Uh we are committed to to uh holding on to them and being able to use them for those educational purposes.

Why Turtle Populations Decline

SPEAKER_00 26:49

So what are what are the uh dangers or w what uh what are causing species uh to be endangered?

SPEAKER_02 26:59

Yeah, it kind of depends on the species, but there there can be a lot of environmental factors. The biggest one is probably habitat loss, you know, the sort of places that turtles or other reptiles and amphibians live. A lot of them have, you know, some of the wetlands have been drained, the forests have been, you know, maybe removed for agriculture. So um with turtles, one of the bigger challenges is um actually nest predation. A lot of their nests get dug up and eaten by things like raccoons and skunks. That's a that's a big challenge. Like you could have 80 to 90 percent of an endangered turtle's nest get destroyed in a given year.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Aaron Powell Now, would that be natural or is that unnatural? Like, do we have more raccoons and skunks now than there would have been 200 years ago that are that are kind of over-predating our turtles?

SPEAKER_02 27:44

Aaron Powell That's a great question. I think the answer is, at least with raccoons, probably yes. Okay. We don't really have top-level carnivore predators like wolves or mountain lions that might you know actually eat some of these mid-sized carnivores like raccoons or skunks. I don't actually know I can't fully answer that question because I'm not really a memologist, but uh it does seem like, especially with raccoons, they are very persistent. They can live in cities in the country, yeah, and they just really have a knack for finding turtle nests.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

So if those are have hunters out there hunting, yeah, they're they're not as popular as the hunting. Yeah, raccoon hunting out is as popular as it once was.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

So yeah, nest predation, habitat loss is another one. Um we talked earlier about um lake edges, you know, the edges, the natural edges of lakes being converted more to kind of a seawall style or big rock banks where it's harder for turtles to even maybe get out to nest, or the Yeah, let's let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

So historically, our lakes would have been bordered by wetlands, which we've talked a lot about on the podcast, or if not a wetland, at least native plants that sort of have a gradual incline then up into a forested community. We'd call that sort of a riparian forest. Whereas now, when you have a very um high slope or completely sort of perpendicular uh concrete face, almost vertical, yeah. Yeah, almost vertical. Um a turtle is not able to climb up to bask in the sun or to get out to uh nesting activities and those sort of things. And so um we we call it kind of a bathtub sort of an idea, both with waves bouncing from shore to shore on our lakes, but also um if you imagine a turtle trying to get up on the side of a bathtub would be difficult as well. So a bathtub effect is appropriate for that as well. We also have in some of our streams, uh, because some of our streams have been channeled and some of our streams are so flashy now with really high uh uh flooding and then lower droughts because of how we've uh oriented a lot of the water towards our streams with lack of wetlands and those sort of things. Our streams now have much um much uh steeper banks than they once did as well. And so turtles really are at a disadvantage now compared to historically with being able to move from the aquatic into the terrestrial environment and have that connection that's that's natural for them.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

A lot of our amphibians and reptiles live at that interface or they move between land and and water and with turtles, you know, hanging out in shallows, basking on you know natural vegetation. But like you said, the artificial shoreline has you know has those negative impacts on them.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

You mentioned animals that raid nests.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

But what about people? What kind of impact are people having on turtles?

SPEAKER_02 30:25

Yeah, that's another great question. I mean, there is definitely an active turtle pet trade, and I've I've seen reports and and you know been in you know at least you know a meeting or two about about the the pet trade of turtles going to China, a lot of them being shipped to China. So box turtles are pretty vulnerable, spotted turtles, the ones that are more attractive and appealing, probably a little bit of the smaller ones, sometimes maybe more vulnerable because people can ship them easily or have them in a tank. But yeah, the pet trade has definitely been a problem. And I don't know how much of that has impacted our local populations up here, probably historically. Yeah, species like spotted turtles, they're they're real gems. I mean, they're cute little turtles, they don't get big, probably easy to collect. They're so rare now, most people don't even find them really, and we're careful about you know sharing that information about where the populations are still hanging on. But that is a problem, that is an actual you know threat to turtle populations, really honestly globally, you

Moving Turtles Safely Off Roads

SPEAKER_02 31:14

know.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

So if I'm driving and I see a turtle in the road, what should I do and what should I not do?

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Yeah, so the best practice if you can safely get out of your car, I just put that caveat on there. I don't want to get scooted. No, if you can safely get out of your car uh to move the turtle in the d in the direction it is going. You don't want to turn it around, let it go. It's on a mission, it's going somewhere, and it may it probably know more about where it's going than than you would expect. And so move it across the road so that it can continue on its journey. It's tricky when there's you're on a high busy highway. You have to kind of make a very quick calculated decision. Am I going to try to move this thing? But but that would be the best practice would be to move it in the direction it's going to be.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

Now, what about if it's a snapping turtle? Is there I've tried it? I've tried picking those up before.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Is there the blanket in your car?

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Shovel, big shovel. Yeah. Yeah. I've used a green scoop shovel before because that you can kind of help get it up underneath there and then move it in that way so it's far away from any of my limbs.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

So I'm glad you brought that up because they're feisty. I mean, they're very defensive. Um you got to make another judgment call. I mean, they'll turn around and face you, they'll face off with you in a defensive thing. So it can be tricky. It might not, it might not be in your best interest to try and move a snapping turtle unless you know how to handle it. Okay. Um, it's tempting to want to grab it by the tail. The tail does make for a good handle, but when you lift that snapping turtle up, there's a lot of weight, and you can I've actually I hate to admit this, but when I was younger, I did that, and you could feel the vertebrae popping. Because the tail's an extension of the spine. It's not made to have all of the heavy, you know, to grab by the tail is bad. But the technique I've used, and it's helpful to have gloves, is to actually grab it above the back legs like that, where you're kind of outside of the striking distance of the head. I'm not saying this is a technique people should always use, but that's the technique I like to use is try to get it where the back of the shell there. Now, if it's a real big one, that might even be too much weight still. But and they'll scratch you with their hind legs. So gloves, the gloves are super helpful, like the leather, leather gloves would be helpful, but it may be that from a human safety standpoint, it's actually not worth doing it unless you're in a situation where maybe it's a country road and it's not busy and you have the right equipment. Right. But I always try to avoid the business end and go for the back, the back of the shell if I'm gonna grab them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah, I've it's kind of like, you know, hey, little guy or little gal, I'm trying to help you out here, you know, work with me on this.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

And it's tough for the turtles that are more docile, like a box turtle or even a painted turtle, if they're crossing a road, you know, a turtle's natural defense when it's scared is to pull in the shell. Yeah. But that's about the last thing you want to do on a road because they'll be crushed. Right. The the best thing they could do is just sprint by turtle standards at least. Sprint across if you can, but that natural defensive posture to pull in is actually super detrimental on a road. Interesting. They're just not adapted for a modern landscape like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Now the eastern box turtle um is is mostly terrestrial, right? We've got a beautiful campus here at Grace College with some uh forested, some upland, lowland forests, as well as some wetland areas, and we've seen eastern box turtle here on campus, which is really amazing uh in some of our restored uh natural areas. Um do they have any portion of their life in an aquatic environment or do they always stay kind of in an upland area?

SPEAKER_02 34:22

They're pretty much always on land, they're almost like our version of a tortoise. I mean, they will occasionally crawl into a lake. I've heard of people kayaking, seen one swimming across the lake. They're a little bit out of their element. Sometimes in like late summer, if it's real hot, they'll get into like little pools of water. Like maybe if you have a stream that's partially dried up and there's some small pools, they'll sometimes congregate in those to maybe hydrate or cool off. But it's not like you know, our painted or map turtles where you actually that is their home, is in the lake. These guys are basically on land, probably. I mean, if I had to estimate, I don't know, 99, 98% of their life on land.

SPEAKER_01 34:52

So are they technically then a tortoise rather than a turtle? They're turtles still, but they're just a terrestrial turtle. So what's the difference then between a tortoise and a turtle?

SPEAKER_02 35:00

That's probably that's a tough one. I actually couldn't tell you the diagnostic difference. I think it has more to do with um scientific classification and kind of who's lumped into which groups or whatever. So um I mean, tortoises, of course, are are land dwellers, but these guys um would be yeah, they would be considered a land dwelling turtle. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

So tortoise means for sure land. Well turtle could be land or water.

SPEAKER_02 35:23

You're just you're just yeah, I mean you're describing their behavior, but I think it probably has more to do with scientific classification. Okay. And behavior maybe follows that. Okay, all right.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Well, speaking of turtles and land, what do I do if I see a turtle on my property? Like I'm in my yard.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

In your yard. I would say let it let it be. There's a decent chance as we get, especially as we get into May and June, it's out there trying to nest and lay its eggs. You know, it's crawled out. Again, you you might think it's lost. Well, you know, don't be so sure. It it it's it may be getting ready to nest. And so, like I said, you know, May, June, uh first half of July, maybe you're gonna get turtles coming on land, dig a little hole, excavate the little hole with their back legs, drop the eggs in, and then bury it and go back into the pond or with the box turtle just back in maybe a different part of the woods. So I would just let it be. Now, if it's getting into you know the driveway or if it's getting into a place where it's actually at risk, you might just move it back kind of into the yard again. But it's probably on a mission to do something that it wants to do.

SPEAKER_00 36:19

It could be more move it in the direction it's going, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:21

Well, if it's in the yard, yeah, you could move it direction it's going or just let it move on its own in that in that sense. But yeah, on the road certainly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Now, is there a way you talked about nest predation? It's really bad, especially for some of ours that are threatened and endangered. If someone were to see a nesting location of one of those species that's threatened or endangered, is there any way to kind of protect that nest from predators to kind of help that turtle out then for reproduction?

SPEAKER_02 36:47

There there are ways to protect a nest, and and you can do it. It's legal to do it as far as I know. Um, and what you would want is some kind of cage that is, you know, not not a bucket, but something that has an open top so it can get the natural sunlight, natural rainfall. You want it to kind of be about as natural as you can. And some kind of heavy, probably heavy duty wire cage, something that could withstand a raccoon trying to rip it, and anchor that anchoring that thing down with big stakes. It would be ideal if you could have a little gap on the bottom so that when they hatch, they can get out and crawl out naturally. Um otherwise you're gonna probably need to check it like every day. Okay. Um, it'll take those turtles probably three or four months to hatch. But um that that is a that is a an approach that people have used to protect turtle nests, especially if it's on a lake where there's a known nesting area, like a beach where lots of turtles nest. A friend of mine, Adam Theta, who's over at Lake Maxoncucky, he's been working with some of the locals over there to actually create turtle nest boxes to protect them. And they're constructing them and they're deploying them uh in areas where they know that they have had nesting and where they can kind of see evidence that something just nested. So it's a legit thing, but you just want to make sure you're kind of doing it the right way. Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah. That's really cool.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

My mom has had a uh turtle nesting in her landscape for the last couple of years. And it was fascinating because they didn't just dig a hole and lay the eggs. It was they dug a hell and then the next day came back and dug more.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

And it was pretty big.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

Maybe a snapping turtle. Could be a big nap turtle. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

We never got to see the turtle. But you know, then it'd be covered up. It's like, okay, we got eggs in there.

SPEAKER_02 38:21

But pretty much all of our aquatic turtles around here that are in our lakes and streams are gonna have the same sort of thing where they're coming on land, they're dropping hard-shelled eggs. I mean, like maybe not as hard as a chicken egg, but but you know, maybe ping pong ball size down into the into the nest, and it can vary from maybe half a dozen eggs to forty or more eggs, depending on the species and the size of the turtle.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

So once eggs hatch and uh little turtles come out, do those little turtles have predators?

SPEAKER_02 38:47

Oh yeah, they're highly vulnerable to really any kind of animal that could fit them in their mouth, the birds or you know, um any any of the mammals, the predatory mammal type of things like raccoons or squirrels, not squirrels, raccoons or um skunks. Squirrels probably wouldn't mess with them. Um and uh I suppose probably even a predatory snake, a snake if they could find them. Because they're just so small. And the shell doesn't really offer them much protection at that point. It's still fairly soft. It hasn't really like fully hardened, and that might take a while. And so yeah, they're pretty vulnerable at that size.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

So we estimated that that box turtle shell was I think we said 15 to 20 was a rough. So when that egg first hatches, how big is that box turtle?

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Oh, when they come out, it i the box turtle would probably be, I mean, it would maybe be half dollar size. Yeah, it's gonna be really small. Pretty much all of our local species are very small. I would say no more than about a silver dollar, probably half dollar. The musk turtles are really small, they're very cute when they come out. Musk turtles are pretty small as it's anyway, as adults. They're not real big. But when they come out, they almost look like an acorn. You know, I've seen them in the shallows, yeah, kind of hanging out in little algae areas, kind of scooping with the net, and they're very small when they come out. And so, yeah, easy, just easy prey for a lot of a lot of um carnivorous animals.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

Do fish eat turtles?

SPEAKER_02 40:02

I mean, a bass would probably take a baby turtle, no problem. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Bass eat anything that fits into their mouth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

I'm sure some of the larger, yeah, some of the larger fish would, yeah. If they saw it swimming in the open. It's to the baby's turtle benefit to hang out in the vegetated shallows. Yeah.

Field Guides And Reporting Rare Finds

SPEAKER_00 40:16

In addition to the turtle shells that you brought to show today, I love show and tell. Tell us about the resource books that you brought.

SPEAKER_02 40:24

Yep. So I've got a few books that I brought here that might be helpful for some of our listeners and viewers. Uh this little booklet, Turtles of Indiana, was published by Purdue University, it's part of the Purdue extension. And I think you can actually order it on their website. It's just a nice little booklet. It's not very much, it's probably between $10 and $15. And uh it just talks about the different species in Indiana. It's got some different uh identification tips, and I believe it has some distribution maps, and so it can be a just a helpful resource for folks to have on hand, not real expensive. If you want to take a deeper dive, if you feel like you're starting to become obsessed with herpetology like me, uh you might want to check out the amphibians and reptiles of Indiana. It's by Sherman Minton Jr. He passed away several years ago, but this is sort of the book. People refer to this as the Bible of amphibians and reptiles for Indiana. Um, and this it would this is actually sold by the Indiana Academy of Science. They have it on their website. Okay, and so you can order it. It'll be cheaper if you order it there. And this is a great book. It's a little bit outdated because it's about 25 years old, but this this has a lot of detailed information, detailed maps. That's an ornate box turtle. It has a lot of great information. And this is the book I have on my desk that I I reference frequently, actually.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

How many different turtles do we have in India? That would be uh let's count them. Oh, I don't have the I don't know the number offhand. I want to say between 10 and 15 ballpark. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

So up here, you know, actually the highest diversity would be down in the southwestern region. Okay. You're getting some of those southern species that just barely come up into Indiana, they come up the Wabash or up the White River system. So we have three different types of map turtles down there. Or up here we just have one, a northern map turtle. And uh river cooter is a rare species down south. So that's got more diversity in general, the southern part of the state, but in the southwest region, that's the highest diversity of turtles in the state. But when you come up here, like I said, you get into spotted and blandings turtles that we don't see down there. So we've got our northern stuff up here, too. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

So why is it called a map? MAP?

SPEAKER_02 42:07

MAP, yeah. Yeah, if you actually get a map turtle in hand, I don't have a shell here, but if you get one in hand, the back of the shell has a really a lot of them have a the males, especially have this nice ridge. It comes to kind of a prominent ridge when they're young. But the the texture of the shell, it looks like a topographic map. There's these lines that actually look like and the name, the scientific name is cool. It's Grap Timmy's Geographica, is the actual name. And it gets even better because the false map turtles is Grap Timmy's pseudo-geographica. Literally false map. So uh, and so yeah, it's it's that pattern on the shell. Pretty good description, actually. And they're a very common species I found in our lakes up here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Okay, this is like asking what your favorite child is, but what is your favorite turtle?

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Ooh, that's a good question. Um, favorite turtle, I'll say, for Indiana. Oh man, I would actually, for all the questions you asked, I was not prepared for this one. I would probably go, I would probably go with um a spotted turtle. I like them. They're very small, they're they're very I this is a non-technical term, they're very cute. Um and they actually occupy, um, they tend to occupy like shallow marshes. I've seen them actually in the Dune and Swale region along Lake Michigan. Shallow swales, they'll be in bogs and fins. They kind of use they seem to use higher quality habitats, and so we have them as some of our nature preserves, but they're just they're darlings of the Midwestern turtle world. They really are.

SPEAKER_01 43:26

Well, and with using those higher quality habitats, those habitats are most in decline in the Midwestern United States. And so it makes sense why those spotted turtles I think they're stayed endangered endangered for Indiana, right?

SPEAKER_02 43:41

Yeah, and we see that with like our switch in ta uh taxonomic groups here, but our our mass of sauga rattlesnakes. They're very rare in Indiana, probably rarer than spotted turtles. We tend to find them in some of the high quality natural areas that are still remaining and a lot of them are protected and not not really co I mean, maybe it's coincidentally uh you f sometimes find spotted turtles and massesugas together. They're occupying similar habitats and high quality.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

And that's another reason why it's important, though the work that the DNR does, the Lilly Center for Lakes and Streams, some of our other partners. And part of the reason of why we're moving forward with this Lake RX project, right? Where we're developing prescriptions for our lakes. And one of those solutions that we're promoting is wetlands, both restoring existing wetlands as well as uh creating new wetlands because we've lost so many of those high-quality wetlands in the state of Indiana and really throughout the Midwest. If we can um recreate and restore wetlands back to that high quality state, we can then start to allow some of these really cool critters to make a comeback as well, which we're really excited about, while making our lakes cleaner for the residents and communities around our lakes at the same time. So a true win-win.

SPEAKER_00 44:54

True win-win.

SPEAKER_01 44:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

DR Nate mentioned fens and bogs and places where you can see these turtles, and we have those here.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Yeah, you're right. We've got bogs here, which are uh where we have uh rainwater, which moves into an isolated area, and over time we can start to have a bog. We have fens here where you have groundwater uh that that's uh creating those wetlands. We have marshes, we have uh swamps, so we have all of these different types of wetlands.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

And we've got a lot of people visiting those locales. So DNRnate, what should I do if I see one of these species that's maybe endangered?

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Yeah, so we're always interested in endangered species sightings, and I'm particularly interested in in turtles and other reptiles and amphibians. So if you see a turtle, and this is a good time of year where the air can sometimes still be cold, the water's cold, but the sun's out and they're warming up, basking on a log, if you get a a pretty good photo of a of a rare species like a blandings turtle or a spotted turtle, please do send it over to us. Consider submitting that record and um because we'd love to add it to our heritage database, that's where we kind of house all of our rare species records. That's actually very useful information for helping us to understand where these rare turtles are still hanging on. That's the first step in conservation is knowing what you have, knowing where it's at, and then you can start to move forward with uh trying to conserve it or maybe even studying the population to learn more about it. So um the email, if you want it, uh for where these guys can send stuff to, um it's it's herpsurveys at dnr.in.gov. H-E-R-P for herpetology surveys, s-r-v-e-y-s at dnr.in.gov. That's my public reporting email if people want to send photos uh to that and the information about where they found it and what date. That is super helpful, and we'd love to fold that information into our data sets.

SPEAKER_00 46:43

I'm gonna start a club called the Turtle Hunters of Casyasco County. There you go. We'll send the information.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Send us the data. We love it. That's great.

SPEAKER_00 46:51

Thank you so much for joining us today, Nate. We're really glad that you brought things to show us. So make sure you turn into the YouTube channel so you can see them. And this is our last episode of season two. I think we saved one of the best for last.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Yeah, this is pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

Yes, but make sure that you stay tuned. Check us out for season three, and we're glad you were here for the Lake Doctor podcast. The doctor is in