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Southwest Washington Wildlife Reports
June 4, 2007

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Date Pond Turtles Captured Painted Turtles Captured Total Captures Temperature 5/22/07 3 3 6 71 5/23/07 15 16 31 78 5/24/07 16 24 40 81 5/25/07 25 30 55 82 5/26/07 6 13 19 82 5/27/07 9 13 22 66 5/28/07 4 13 17 75 5/29/07 18 33 51 84 5/30/07 19 27 46 90 5/31/07 22 24 46 93 SUM 137 196 333 NA

Turtle Captures: Pierce NWR 2007

Region 5 Wildlife Areas

Klickitat Wildlife Area: Acting Wildlife Area Manager VanLeuven conducted a mourning dove survey on May 22. Only 4 doves were recorded; logging activity and road construction interfered with hearing the birds to a moderate degree. Monitoring the grazing effort continues as well as working with the Washington Conservation Corp, including marking and piling suitable burning locations.

Wildlife Diversity Division

Western Pond Turtle Project: Biologists Holman and Anderson conducted a 10-day turtle trapping effort at the Pierce Ranch Unit of the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge during the final days of May. A total of 333 turtle captures were recorded during the period. The effort was undertaken as a portion of WDFW's on-going monitoring and management of this introduced population of western pond turtles. Annual survival and growth rates of the introduced pond turtles as well as population estimation of the extant painted turtles are generated from this study. To date survivorship among the introduced pond turtles has been approximately 90% and individuals from the initial releases are approaching maturity (approximately age 10).

Twenty-three traps set in two bodies of water were checked daily by boat during the effort. Thanks to Fisheries Biologist Groesbeck, Acting Klickitat Wildlife Area Manager VanLeuven, Customer Service Specialist Gonzalez as well as volunteers Renan, Williams, and Ralston for all of their valuable participation in the task. Please see the attached figure illustrating the number of individual turtles captured each day, by species. Note that many individuals are captured on more than one occasion.