Across Long Island, New York, Eastern box turtles are declining rapidly in population.
While not officially labeled as threatened or endangered on the federal level, experts say the turtles are vulnerable due to habitat loss and fragmentation, along with other factors like the illegal pet trade, pesticides, and vehicle collisions.
To keep matters from getting worse, there’s April.
April is a 16-month-old Labrador retriever and is the newest recruit who has been trained as a conservation detection dog, able to sniff out the vulnerable turtles in the woodland brush.
April is occasionally joined by her partner in crime, Newt, another Labrador on the case, who has been tracking turtles for five years across six states.
Together, under the handling of herpetologist Dr. Kris Hoffmann, the dogs have been trained to pick up the scent of the box turtles. They don GPS collars, a bright orange vest, and doggie bug spray as they traverse the woods of Long Island, in search of their prize.
Environmental organization Group for the East End has teamed up with Dr. Ana Thonis, a New York University biology professor, and Dr. Hoffmann, who owns the wildlife detection team Bark & Code, to survey the turtles across eight locations in Long Island.
“We don’t know right now exactly what's going on with these guys,” Thonis told Newsday of the turtles. “But we'll collect some data, and hopefully we can use that to inform legislation or more action for turtles.”
The dogs help find the turtles so conservationists can get an accurate count of the elusive reptiles, while also assessing their health and gathering data about the species and what they call their home habitat.
When April or Newt find a turtle in the wild, they signal to the handlers, and from there, each turtle is measured, weighed, and photographed for data collection. Researchers will also collect a small blood sample and mark the shell with a harmless notch before returning the turtle safely home.
April is able to pick up the scent of a turtle from 100 yards away in an open field, according to Hoffmann, and she has learned to distinguish between the target species and other more common scents. For instance, if she smells a snapping turtle, she will simply ignore it. But when she comes across an Eastern box turtle, she knows it’s time to signal.
During one day in the field, the team found seven turtles, which Thonis told Newsday was “a very encouraging sign.”
For the project as a whole, Newt’s record is sniffing out 14 turtles in one day. He’s found “thousands” of turtles over his years of service.
His signal is simple, Hoffmann told the Northfork Sun.
“He’ll lie down next to it and smell it,” she said.
He is then rewarded with his favorite thing: his ball.
April is still getting the hang of things but has already become a major asset to the survey team.
“We expect her to be unstoppable by next year,” Hoffmann told Newsday.
The good news is that the project will continue into the foreseeable future. Thonis said she plans to return to the same survey spots “for many more years.”
Box turtles can live past 80, so it takes time to really understand population sizes, and long-term studies are crucial, the researcher told Newsday.
“In conversations with many longtime Long Island residents, it has become clear that box turtles are far less common than they once were,” Thonis told Newsday.
Without consistent monitoring, she added, “we will be much less prepared to understand the causes of any future declines or to develop strategies that could help stabilize and potentially reverse them.”
Some of those strategies could be small wildlife tunnels to help the species navigate their habitat safely, as urbanization has led to increased vehicle strikes and raccoon predators hunting the turtles’ eggs.
But in the meantime, data collection — aided by two furry friends — aims to build a safer future for the species one sniff at a time.
“We’re using animals to protect other animals,” Hoffmann told the Northfork Sun. “It’s very rewarding.”
“Everybody loves a turtle,” she added. “When you’re aware that they’re endangered in their own backyard, people want to save them.”
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Header image courtesy of April the Conservation Detection Dog / Instagram
