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In Search of... Ornate Diamondback Terrapins. Tampa Bay to Cedar Key part 2 |
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Patrick secretly dreamed of moving to Venice and becoming a gondolier. |
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Brown Pelicans Pelecanus occidentalis and Cormorants Phalacrocorax auritus nesting. |
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Double Crested Cormorant Phalacrocorax auritus taking off. |
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Dolphins feeding on fish they have herded into the shallows. |
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Gulf Killifish Fundulus grandis |
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Batfish Ogcocephalus cubifrons |
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The Archelon (Wilderness Systems The Ride). A comfortable boat with plenty of space for dive gear. |
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Shell-Mound Prickly Pear Opuntia stricta. I am a fan of the cactus fruit you find in the grocery store. That led me to make the mistake of trying these. Could be the variety, but probably due to the location they were heavy on salt flavor. |
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When it rains it pours. Six trips with nothing to show for it but a blurry photo, but on the seventh trip...success. Two males and a female Ornate Diamondback Terrapin Malaclemys terrapin macrospilota. Adult female Diamondbacks get a bit larger than males. |
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This female, also in the above picture, was gravid (April). |
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Male from right side of above group picture. |
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This spunky little guy (same as above shot) was missing part of both back legs, but it didn't slow him down. A number of times, while taking pictures of the other two, I had to stop and catch him as he escaped out of the kayak. The leg wounds are probably due to raccoons. |
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Dark male from group picture above. |
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Another male. |
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Lest anyone think this is a 5 legged mutant, I am holding another turtle behind him. |
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This is the male behind the male above. He has a nice mud and algae goatee going. |
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This female was missing most of a front leg. The stump is visible. All of the turtles found, missing limbs or not, appeared to be healthy and heavy. |
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Wow! Just a beautiful turtle. The barnacle on her left side is accompanied by more on her left bridge. |
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Live barnacles. In the upper left one of the bridge barnacles you can see the thread-like retracted feathery cirri that extend to filter the water for plankton. |
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Three more males. I put in some time finding them so I have to put a picture of each one on here. |
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An old female. |
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Barnacle Betty |
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I hate to end this page on a downer, but sometimes that's how life is. Toward the end of my last search for Diamondbacks I found an area that looked promising and this is what I saw. The water was low and clear enough for me to get a picture. The little guy floating at the top was already dead, but probably not for very long. In the lower right of the picture there is the shell of another Diamondback. Closer inspection with a mask and snorkel revealed an additional two dead turtles and a live blue crab in the trap. |
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Now I wouldn't say that every crab trap catches a turtle, but this one caught 4. It doesn't take an imagination when you see the number of crab traps in the marshes and off the coast to believe that they have an impact on turtle numbers. Surely there is a way to trap crabs without killing turtles. I know there are excluder designs that are being tested. If they work without impacting crab catches, they should be required. There should also be a way of identifying the owner of traps, so those that leave their traps to ghost fish can be charged with littering at the least. The above picture is also an example of how asinine the state's laws can be. If I was caught in possession of 4 of these turtles (the limit is 2 per person) I would be in trouble, and gods forbid if I was trying to breed them. Yet, the owner of this trap has removed 4 of them from the wild and there is zero penalty. |
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Also check out... In Search of Carolina Diamondback Terrapin In Search of Eastern Diamondback Terrapins And these related links http://www.baysoundings.com/sum03/terrapin.html |
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