2022 Turtles Kingston Annual Report
Thanks to our Turtles Kingston Coordinators and the support of our community, this year was a huge success!
This year is coming to a close, but before it does we wanted to look back on Turtles Kingston’s accomplishments over the 2022 turtle season. Below you will find a detailed summary of what we accomplished in all our programs: education program, nesting program, trauma program, science program, advocacy program, and more. But, first to summarize…
Education Program
Our Education Team composed of Hayley/Aly, Nikki, and John did an amazing job this year with increasing our reach, engaging the community, and improving our knowledge of turtles! Let’s break down what they accomplished.
Outreach and Knowledge Dissemination
To encourage the next generation of turtle warriors we created these stickers
During 2022, we aimed to continue to spread accurate and easy to understand information about turtles. One way we accomplished this was through the creation of 3 new infographics that help to explain and visualize the life cycle of a turtle, the importance of turtles, and how we can reduce turtle road mortality through mitigation.
The Turtle Blog, spear headed by our Information Coordinator Nikki, focuses on improving and disseminating information about turtles. In 2022 10 blog posts were made on important topics ranging from ‘Turtles and Construction’ to ‘Are We Interfering with Nature?’ and from ‘Pet Turtles and Rehoming’ to ‘Why did the Turtle Cross the Road?’. All important topics to explore more in order to have a better understanding of how and why turtle conservation is important. With such important topics we were happy to have had 209 views of our blog posts this year and hope these posts continue to be a useful source of information to individuals in the future.
In April we were approached by a Brownies Leader to present to their group. As a result, our Education Coordinator Hayley created what is now known as our Turtle Trials Activity. This activity was a huge success with its availability spreading throughout Girl Guides and Scouts groups. Over the summer we facilitated 9 Turtle Trials activities to Girlguides and Scouts groups as well as at libraries, daycares, and summer classes. Some of the activities were even facilitated out in Elgin and Toledo (~1 hour away). As a result of the high demand for this activity and the far reach it was getting, we partnered with blue marble learning scene to regularly offer this programming throughout the year. You can book future Turtle Trials Activities through them here.
In 2022, we were also lucky to participate in 2 community events (Skeleton Park Arts Festival and Dive Against Debris) where we had informational booths. This summer also saw us host our first annual Turtle Awareness Day on July 10. The Director of Turtles Kingston, Tara, was also able make 6 presentations about turtles including to our local Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority (CRCA), staff from the Kingston District MECP office (Ministry of Environment, Conservation, and Parks), two Rotary Clubs in Kingston, at the Marine Museum of the Great Lakes for a project called Our Great Lakes: Celebrating Our Freshwater Resource, and to support the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte Turtle Mitigation Project.
Finally, throughout 2022 we were able to reach a larger audience with the help of newspaper and magazine articles and radio and TV interviews. Specifically, in June, The Kingstonist wrote an article about our trauma program, while the Kingston Whig Standard highlighted our conservation efforts. Thousand Islands Life Magazine featured one of our blog posts in their June issue and in July Neighbours Magazine included a small comment from our Education Coordinator Hayley about how to help turtles cross roads. We were interviewed by CFRC radio on July 8 where Tara discussed our programs and on July 10 Global News featured a story about our first Turtle Awareness Day.
Social Media
Turtles Kingston started out with only a Facebook Group that quickly grew to over 4000 followers. Today we maintain that Facebook Group and have also expanded into Instagram and a Website (turtleskingston.com). As a result of those additions, we have been able to reach even more people this year than before! Specifically, we were able to reach 198,586 people via Facebook, 13,487 people via Instagram, and 3,800 people via our website.
Facebook and Instagram are a key way we disseminate information and this year our Education Coordinators Hayley (Jan-Aug) and Aly (Sep-Dec) made 203 unique posts. These posts helped grow our audience to 4,462 Facebook and 604 Instagram followers.
Our new Turtles Kingston website received a total 8200 views with 81.5% of them being from Canada (85.8% of the Canadians being from Ontario, and 37.1% of those from Ontario being from Kingston - a total of 1239 people). June was definitely turtle month with our website receiving over 1000 unique visitors in that month alone.
Via our website and social media accounts we received many inquiries throughout the year and were able to answer more than 140 questions from individuals in our community. We love the opportunity to communicate one-on-one with Turtle Warriors to help provide clarity, support, and encouragement. In order to reach more people and provide more specific information we also launched the Turtles Kingston Membership. This Membership includes a monthly newsletter and the ability to volunteer when we have opportunities. In 2022 the Membership grew from 0 to 125 individuals.
Nesting Program
In 2022, our Nesting Program Coordinator James was able to coordinate the construction of 129 nest protectors with the help of two amazing volunteers - Carl and Katie. With the global supply chain having issues, James had to work hard to get all the supplies we needed to make the nest protectors. Luckily, we were able to get enough supplies and found amazing supporters in the Rotary Club of Carataqui-Kingston and Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse in Kingston who contributed $2,422.80 and $250 worth of lumber for this program, respectively.
Sales of our newly constructed nest protectors were supported by Marshall's Nursery & Garden who were able to distribute 44 nest protectors from their locations. Sales were also made via our new Turtle Store where members of the public can purchase nest protectors, lawn signs, and bumper stickers. In total we distributed 121 nest protectors, 56 of which were used for a monitoring program of newly installed alternative nesting sites.
Nest protectors were sold at cost for the materials and funds from this program ($1,765) will continue to support the construction of more nest protectors in 2023.
An injured Map turtle being transported to Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre
Trauma Program
One of our key programs, the Turtle Trauma Response Program had some major changes to it this year that were flawlessly implemented by our Trauma Program Coordinator Adrian. Specifically, new volunteer driver and temporary holding station instruction manuals were created to guide our volunteer drivers and volunteer vets. A standard operating procedure for the program was created including for our partnership with Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre. In addition, this year we were able to subscribe to a mass texting service, thanks to Trailhead’s Eco Grant, that allows us to quickly send messages to all volunteer drivers when an injured turtle has been brought into a temporary holding station.
The Turtle Trauma Response Program runs from May through October and during this period members of the community and our volunteers successfully helped 40 injured turtles and 4 at risk nests (please note it is illegal to alter or dig up a turtle nest - these were either accidentally uncovered or extracted with appropriate permits).
All 44 turtles were taken to Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre for rehabilitation or incubation, with some already having been released back into the wild. Injured turtles were taken to 4 of our 7 participating holding stations within Kingston. The turtles brought to these locations included 10 Snapping turtles, 4 Map turtles, 1 Blanding’s turtle, 21 Painted turtles, 1 red-eared slider, and 3 unidentified species.
All this amazing work would not have been possible without our ~38 volunteer drivers who would pick up the injured turtles from our temporary holding stations and transport them to Sandy Pines in Napanee. Anyone interested in becoming a volunteer driver can sign up through our Turtles Kingston Membership. New volunteer drivers are recruited between March 1 and May 1 each year.
Science Program
Our science program and Science Coordinator Lesley were both new additions to Turtles Kingston this year. One of the goals of the science program was to provide a new opportunity for volunteers to get hands on experience with turtles, while continuing turtle research that had been occurring in Kingston. This research is actually an extension of Lesley’s Masters work and involves monitoring and tracking turtles within the study site and protecting their nests.
Social media call for volunteers from 2022 turtle season
Through our new Volunteer Monitoring effort we trained 17 individuals on how to identify turtles, record observations, protect nests, and recognize their markings (some turtles in the study site were marked with distinguishable codes). Of those individuals trained, 8 participated in the program by submitting at least one report in the month of June. That small number of volunteers, and our Coordinator Lesley, did great work protecting at least 36 turtle nests, submitting 203 observations, and observing a minimum of 71 turtles in the study site. There were likely many more turtles observed than just 71, however, only turtles with the unique codes can be counted as separate turtles.
Prior to the monitoring season we had an additional 4 volunteers help maintain some of our used nest protectors so they could be redeployed this season to protect more nests!
A secondary goal of the science program was to investigate the permits required to rescue at risk turtle nests. Since it is illegal to dig up or alter turtle nests, appropriate permits are required. Turtles Kingston was interested in being able to obtain relevant permits so that when at risk turtle nests were brought to our attention, we could extract them and bring them to Sandy Pines Wildlife Centre for incubation. It is always best to leave turtle nests where they are (thus our nest protection program). However, sometimes turtle nests are found in areas that are going to be disturbed (such as for active construction that cannot be postponed). In these situations, Turtles Kingston wants to be able to help rescue those nests.
In 2022, we were able to trial run our new Nest Rescue Program (to launch in 2023) on 2 at risk nests. We successfully obtained 2 emergency authorization permits from MNRF (Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry) and extracted two Snapping Turtle nests with a total of 52 eggs.
Advocacy Program
Our Advocacy Coordinator Abbey joined us in May 2022. Abbey, with the support of our Director Tara, actively advocated on behalf of turtles in 5 projects: proposed Davis Tannery Lands development; the Federal Governments conceptual sediment management plan for the Kingston Inner Harbour; flood protection measures for Abbey Dawn Road, Highway 2 and St. Lawrence Avenue; the Highway 15 quarry housing development proposal; and, the more homes built faster act (Bill 23).
Many of these advocacy efforts are supported by our involvement with River First YGK, with whom we attend weekly meetings. Many of our annual advocacy efforts can be showcased in the meetings we attended and the letters we wrote. This year, our main focus was on the Davis Tannery project. We attended and spoke at 3 City meetings regarding this project and wrote 2 letters to Kingston City Council. As a result of much advocacy work by us and many others, City Council voted against the zoning bylaw changes - a huge accomplishment!
Other Successes!
Of course, not everything we do at Turtles Kingston fits into one of our programs. Some of the other accomplishments we completed in 2022 included the creation of a new Turtle character for Turtles Kingston, Torty the turtle.
We were also able to support our accomplishments through the sale of our nest protectors, lawn signs, bumper stickers, and wristlets/keychains and generous donations from Trailhead, Rotary Club of Kingston-Frontenac, Rotary Club of Cataraqui-Kingston, Lowe’s Home Improvement, and blue marble learning scene, who contributed a total of $4,330.20.
Our programs for 2023 are already being supported by an end of year donation by Daughters General Store and The Coffee Plant of $600 as well as our silent action that was a huge success with 59 items donated by local businesses and $1503 raised. Thank you to the 26 donors and dozens of people who supported our fundraising auction. We had items donated by: Caboose Co., Potter's Nurseries, Lichen Fairytales, Minotaur Games and Gifts, Cornerstone Canadian Art & Craft, blue marble learning scene, Limestone Therapies, Kingston Forest & Nature School, Monarch Financial Planning Inc., Red House West, Wilton Cheese Factory, Shiva's Delight, Studio on Queen, Topsy Farms, Hip Kids, Art by A. Swirski, Eco-Kare International, Megan Kaiser, Allen Tian, Carl Hanna, Phil Harvey, Adrian Jacklin, James Ostler, Douglas Wilson, Tara Bauer, and an anonymous donor. If you weren’t able to participate in the silent auction you can still get a unique turtle item and support Turtles Kingston by ordering an Ontario Turtle tree ornament handmade by Art by A. Swirski.
We did sell some of our bumper stickers to those that wanted them mailed, however, the rest of our bumper stickers are offered for free from various locations in Kingston. This year we actually ran out of bumper stickers, which means there are ~15,000 bumper stickers out in the community! Of course, the distribution of these bumper stickers is only made possible by the local businesses that supported our efforts this year, including: Elm Cafe, Coffee & Company, Kingston Coffee House (Princes St location), Urban Nature Store, Trailhead, Marine Museum of the Great Lakes, Novel Idea, Daughters General Store, Cornerstone, Cataraqui Pet Hospital, Topsy Farms, Lakeshore Animal Hospital, Beardall Animal Hospital, Kingston Veterinary Clinic, Amherstview Pet Hospital, Kingston Humane Society, Geneva Crepe Cafe, Potter’s Nurseries , and Pet Valu.
One of our other big efforts this year was to start a community road monitoring program. Our goal with this program was to get community members to help us understand more about how often turtles are found on roads, what type of turtles they are, and what they are doing, by having them submit normal daily encounters. Submissions were made through a form on our website.
In total we had 79 observations submitted to us. Of those observations 10 were Blanding’s turtles, 21 were Painted turtles, 32 were Snapping turtles, 1 was a map turtle, and 15 were unidentified. Of course, when turtles are found on/near roads there is the potential for them to be injured or even dead. Of the 79 turtle observations submitted, 53 of the turtles were alive and uninjured. Community members supporting our monitoring program also indicated that 48 of the turtles reported needed help crossing the road and 2 of them successfully had their nests protected.
As we continue to get more observations of turtles on roads, we hope to use this data to support the installation of road mitigation measures, like those successfully installed on Princess St. at the Westbrook wetland through efforts of Turtles Kingston’s previous Director, Mabyn Armstrong.
Thank you to everyone who supported our efforts this year, for everyone who helped a turtle cross a road, for everyone who supports our Turtles Kingston bumper stickers, and to all the turtle warriors out there! We could not do any of this without you.