SEATTLE - A female, endangered western pond turtle was found Saturday, September 7, 2002, in Central Kitsap County before she exchanged hands from the Island Wildlife Shelter on Bainbridge Island to the zoo where it is undergoing a 30-day quarantine.

Following the quarantine period, the turtle will be transferred to the zoo’s successful Western Pond Turtle Recovery Project. As a scientific and conservation center, Woodland Park Zoo spearheaded the recovery effort by collaborating with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), and Oregon Zoo to help save the highly endangered reptile. The new turtle will be Woodland Park’s third breeding female for the recovery project.

The western pond turtle was once common, ranging from the Puget Sound area of Washington through western Oregon to Baja, California. Today, only two wild populations of pond turtles exist in the entire state of Washington in Klickitat and Skamania Counties. In 1990, when the population numbered only 150-200 turtles, Woodland Park’s curator of reptiles at the time, Frank Slavens, and his wife, Kate Slavens, a staff member with WDFW, launched the long-term recovery project to help the rare turtle.

The project’s partners and a team of dedicated volunteers seasonally capture female turtles in the wild, fit them with transmitters, and track their nesting sites during spring breeding season. The newly-hatched turtles are collected and “head started” at both zoos where they are raised for their first year, until they are large enough to escape the large mouths of non-native bullfrogs and other predators, then are reintroduced into the wild.

Through this head starting program, the project has released nearly 600 turtles back into the wild; the released juveniles into the Columbia Gorge are showing a 90 percent survival rate.

In addition, Woodland Park Zoo maintains a small breeding colony of western pond turtles, which had their origins in Western Washington, an area in which pond turtles have become virtually extinct. Occasionally, an individual turtle is found in our area and is then brought to the zoo to join the breeding colony. More than 40 turtles have hatched as a result of this breeding program —five so far this year — and when they reach a sufficient size, they are released into a state-owned pond near Lakewood, Washington.

The dangerous decline of the turtles is due to habitat degradation and disease. The biggest threat, however, is bullfrogs. Found east of the Rockies, this non-indigenous frog has thrived throughout the west, driving pond turtles and a host of other small, vulnerable aquatic species to the brink of extinction.

For more information on the Western Pond Turtle Recovery Project, go to the western pond turtle fact sheet or to the zoo’s Conservation section where there is a western pond turtle special feature .

You may also go to western pond turtle section of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Web site.